University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


THE  PETER  AND  ROSELL  HARVEY 
MEMORIAL  FUND 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN 


A   WISDOM    SONG 


BY 


THOMAS    LAKE    HARRIS 


"  Did  not  our  hearts  burn  within  us 
while  He  talked  with  us  by  the  way." 

LUKE  xxiv.  32. 


FOUNTAINGROVE 

Privately  Printed 
1894. 


DEDICATORY    EPISTLE. 

TO 

W.      R. 


STANDING  to-day  upon  Time's  utmost  peak, 

As  the  discoverer  once  on  Darien, 
The  great  south  seas  upon  the  vision  break, 

The  timeless  Life  World  rounding  to  my  ken. 
Truth  is  made  on-sight ;  each  low  wave,  that  swells 
To  break  beneath  the  feet,  a  mystery  tells. 

Etheric  roll  the  waters  heaving  far, 

All  musical  in  wisdom's  measured  flow, 

Breathing  to  melodies  that  pregnant  are 
With  the  New  Life  that  folds  us  to  bestow. 

Through  each  impregnate  sense  take  form  and  wing 

Swift  revelations  ;  to  the  heart  they  sing. 

Now,  as  my  bosom  draws  the  blithe,  warm  wind 
That  leads  me  on  the  Godlands  to  explore, 

I  waft  such  strains  of  poesies  behind 

As  serve  to  guide  the  feet  to  find  the  "Door," 

And  show  the  "Way,"  that  opens  for  release 

To  Isles  of  Blessedness  in  seas  of  peace. 


DEDICATION. 


"  Sweetheart,"  spake  one  who  claims  and  comforts  me, 
"A  friend  is  at  the  call  who  feels  akin." 

I  opened  and  a  Pilgrim,  gallantly 

Equipped  for  daring  travel,  ventured  in. 

Beholding  him  as  " Christian"  I  inclined; 

Thence  we  embraced  by  sympathies  entwined. 


'Twas  Bunyan  of  the  "  Progress";  now  he  dwells 
In  England's  Heaven  and  is  a  Bishop  there. 

Upon  mine  ears  grew  chime  of  wedding  hells  ; 
The  one  oped  full  to  twain,  right  blessed  pair, 

"Christian"  and  "Christiana"  one-in-twain, 

John  Bunyan  and  his  lady,  beamed  amain. 


Spake  they  in  union,  trumpet  toned  in  lute, 
"  Thou  wert  in  Britain  but  the  other  day 

And  clasped  one  there,  a  godly  soul  in  fruit, 

Whose  heart  in  thine  and  ours  makes  warm  array : 

Bid  him  God  cheer."— William,  of  this  I  tell 

And  dedicate  the  Song  to  thee  as  well. 


PART    FIRST 


"  Our  Conversation  is  in  Heaven  ;  from  whence  also  we 
look  for  the  Savior,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ :  who  shall  change 
our  vile  body,  that  it  may  be  fashioned  like  unto  His  glorious 
body,  according  to  the  working  whereby  He  is  able  even  to 
subdue  all  things  unto  Himself." 

PHIL.  in.  20,  21. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


UPLIFT,  New  Man,  uplift  in  exultation  ; 

Time's  utmost  mountain  peak  at  last  is  scaled. 
Breasting  all  wraths,  wrought  to  one  desolation, 

Thou  in  God  burdened  hast  by  Him  prevailed. 
Lift  orient  brow,  full-bosomed  meet  the  sun  : 
Hail  the  new  morn  ;  breathe  full  with  heaven  at-one. 


Height, length  and  breadth,  these  shape  the  third  dimension 
Thou  hast  o'ercome,  outfilled,  transcended  all : 

Thine  is  the  throughness,  organized  extension, 
The  wondrous  fourth:  —  reflect,  repeat,  recall; 

Collect  thy  thought  in  God  through  nature's  round 

And  time's  abyss  and  mystery's  dim  profound. 


The  path  of  Throughness  opens  :  lo !  the  gates 

Of  the  eternal  are  for  touch  ajar. 
'Tis  the  concentered  soul  that  contemplates, 

As  through  its  system  thinks  the  solar  star. 
In  the  low  minors  of  the  opening  third 
Pulse  the  freed  octaves  of  the  four-fold  Word. 


8  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


II. 


1 

"Man's  an  intelligence  whom  organs  serve," 

Aquinas  reasoned  in  his  syllogism. 
Follow  the  thought^  the  dimension's  curve  ; 

View  it  illumined  in  the  mental  prism. 
The  quickened  man,  by  feeling,  thought  and  sense, 
Is  organ  for  the  Word's  Intelligence. 

2 

The  sentient  crystal  of  the  universe 
Is  human ;  its  live  molecules  are  men. 

Organs  they  are  through  whom  the  rays  disperse 
From  the  True  Light  and  flow  to  light  again ; 

Yet  thosie  alone  are  men  who  feed  on  light 

And  by  it  thrive  and  for  its  ends  unite. 

3 

An  atheist  as  to  Theosocialism, 

Though  seeming  man,  is  but  a  shade,  a  shell, 
Whose  hollow  self  builds  up  its  blind  abysm 

With  magic  forms  grouped  by  an  evil  spell, 
And  so  is  compassed  with  illusive  gleams 
Whereof  it  rears  the  systems  of  its  dreams. 

4 

He  is  a  creature  of  enormous  toil, 

And  yet  of  all  the  creatures  most  infirm. 

Holding  by  organs  in  a  triune  coil, 

Three-score  and  ten  is  their  persistent  term. 

Though  he  by  strength  should  linger  past  four-score, 

Death  sounds  his  'larum  peal  from  door  to  door. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


III. 


1 

All  sacred  gifts  await  their  opportune. 

The  crowning  gifts  of  God's  new  time  await 
Till  feeling,  thought  and  sense  in  perfect  tune 

Out-lift  the  organs  through  their  three-fold  state. 
The  third  dimension  holds  the  worm  in  plan ; 
The  fourth  holds  God,  in  fashion  as  the  Man. 


Think  to  the  fourth  ;  think  faithly  if  at  all. 

In  the  out-lift  alone  are  safeties  found. 
To  think  the  third  as  final  is  to  fall 

In  sheer  abasement  to  non-human  ground. 
Faith  leads  the  evolution  from  the  mesh 
Of  pictured  nature  to  the  Word  made  flesh. 

3 

The  third  is  all  a  matrix  and  therein 

True  man  from  seed  of  Word  shapes  on  to  grow ; 
Height,  length  and  breadth  by  formal  style  to  win ; 

Weaving  the  outness  of  his  being  so. 
Phrased  in  the  natural  scripture  by  his  third, 
He  fills  its  content  from  his  Cause,  the  Word. 

4 

And  this  is  life,  true  life,  that  he  may  know 
His  God  incarnate  to  extreme  of  needs, 

And  put  on  God  in  fourths,  and  own  Him  so, 

And  follow  God  in  throughness,  whence  proceeds 

The  pathway  of  pure  being,  made  complete 

Where,  in  the  Infinite,  all  finites  meet. 


10  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

5 

Think  thou  to  God  to  lead  thy  throughness  on : 

Think  that  the  forms  that  serve  Him  may  transpose 

Think  of  thy  being,  made  a  daughter-son 
And  led  to  new  beginnings  from  the  close  : 

Think  of  thy  form  transcendent  o'er  the  strife •; 

Throughness  led  forth  by  all  the  doors  of  life. 

6 

So  is  "  Captivity  led  captive  "  ;  so 
Death,  "the  last  enemy,"  for  thee  shall  fail, 

Dissolving  in  life's  victory.     The  flow 

Of  God  in  throughness  rounds  the  mighty  scale 

Of  life's  triumphant  harmonies  ;  they  blend 

For  the  "new  song,"  the  song  without  an  end. 


IV. 


1 

There  was  a  MAN  who  stood  in  Paradise  : 

All  names  of  worth  are  His  in  one  great  name. 

Morning  Shone  forth  from  His  illustrious  eyes. 
He  spake,  "By  throughness  unto  thee  I  came, 

And  with  thee  in  this  new  dimension  stand, 

That  I  may  show  thee  of  the  glorious  land." 

2 

Then  came  forth  ladies,  matrons  virginal, 

Led  by  divine  processions  through  His  form ; 

For  He  is  made  their  dwelling,  and  the  wall 

Of  their  perfections.     Blithe  and  sweet  and  warm 

They  wove  a  dance  of  hymeneal  choirs  ; 

Then  entered  Him  again  by  loves  in  fires. 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN.  11 


3 

Thence  issued  knights,  bridegrooms  of  such  pure  brides, 
And  lo !  the  Man,  now  Woman,  beamed  to  greet 

Their  righteousness.     As  waves  to  ocean  glide, 
Melodious,  worshipful  they  met  Her  feet. 

Soon,  as  their  prayer-song  found  a  blissful  close, 

They  entered  Her,  drawn  on  to  love's  repose. 

4 

» 

Such  follow  Thee,  our  Lord !  where'er  Thou  goest, 
For  they  abide  in  and  come  forth  from  Thee ; 

And  as  the  ocean  Thou  to  fill  them  flowest : 
Thou  art  to  them  dimension,  and  the  sea 

Of  crystalline  clear  fire,  by  zone  in  zone, 

Tides  from  Thy  shining  as  an  orbed  white  throne. 


V. 


1 

Grasped  in  the  infamy  of  life's  repression, 
Earth's  wasted  peoples  generate,  disease  : 

For  immanation  they  have  wrought  obsession  ; 
For  emanation  wrathful  tyrannies ; 

A  scientific  magic  ;  the  " black  art" 

Bred- by  the  false  mind  in  the  evil  heart. 

2 

As  in  the  rivers  minnows  are  to  pikes, 

So  on  earth's  range  true  saints  to  sinners  are. 

The  man  who  smites  not,  to  the  churl  who  strikes, 
As  crystal  mirror  meets  the  iron  bar. 

The  evil  harden  on,  blow  after  blow ; 

The  good  grow  sensitive  by  worth  in  flow. 


12  CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN'. 


3 

The  third  dimension,  as  it  narrows  in, 
Contracts  upon  the  generous  ardent  soul. 

Magic  has  wrought  a  wilderness  of  sin, 
Spaced  in  illusions  that  the  sense  control. 

Mind,  that  would  fourth  dimensioned  truths  declare, 

Meets  death  in  life,  obstruction  everywhere. 

4 

"  Earth  is  the  limbo  of  the  universe," 

Spake  Fourier,  Wisdom  vocal  on  his  lips. 

Her  chariot  of  ascension  shapes  to  hearse : 
Time  is  for  her  the  shade  of  an  eclipse. 

God  is  eclipsed,  God  is  eclipsed  in  man ; 

Self, — the  gorged  self-snake, — rules  the  three-fold  plan. 

5 

"Subversive  evolution," — note  it  well, — 

This  other  fact  of  earthly  time  he  said. 
Man,  failing  to  shape  heaven,  creates  his  hell. 

Earth  at  the  chariot  wheels  of  death  is  led, 
A  chained,  dumb  captive,  urged  by  terrors  on 
To  cataclysm  and  oblivion. 

6 

"Impenetrable  ignorance,  this  plea 

May  save  the  soul  from  an  eternal  pain"  : 

Thus  Rome  by  a  remains  of  charity 

Holds  hope  to  man  when  other  hopes  were  vain. 

Upon  this  generation,  lingering  yet 

Anigh  the  fated  verge,  such  seal  is  set. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  13 


Its  ears  are  closed  so  that  it  cannot  hear ; 

Its  eyes  are  seared  so  that  it  shall  not  see  ; 
Its  brain,  grown  hollow,  is  a  shadowed  sphere 

Where  the  heart's  hardness  shapes  vacuity 
To  moving  shapes,  illusive,  self-inwrought, 
Not  thought  but  lifeless  images  of  thought. 

8 

The  seed  of  God  is  stifled  from  the  root, 
But  for  it  spectral  nature  seed  has  grown. 

Men  breathe  contagion  from  the  dissolute 
Waste  vapors,  where  the  airy  space  is  sown, 

From  the  accurst  impure  magnetic  dust 

Of  human  ill,  with  microscopic  lust. 

9 

Instead  of  God  the  swarmed  bacteria  come. 

Nature  seven-fold  has  multiplied  the  curse 
Man  casts  into  her :  now  it  makes  an  home 

In  him  and  generates,  so  to  asperse 
The  burdened  organs,  where  he  holds  his  breath, 
With  fetid  rains  of  generative  death. 

10 

Woe  then  to  prophets,  in  this  evil  time 

Of  prescient  doom,  who  prophesy  smooth  things. 

Woe  to  the  seers  who  see  no  crime  in  crime, 
But  progress  climbing  by  ascensive  rings. 

Woe  to  the  priests,  when  God  holds  open  door 

For  coming  truth,  who  cry  "no  more,  110  more  !" 


14  C  O  N  V  E  R  S  A  T  I  O  N    IN    II  E  A  V  E  N  . 


VI. 


1 

The  mortal  brain,  made  by  suppression  massive, 
Resists  the  ardors  of  the  Vital  Sun. 

To  base  results  grown  by  the  self-will  passive, 
Through  all  the  reason,  by  result,  is  spun 

A  clinging  surface,  that  obstructs  the  ray 

Of  wisdom's  effluence  from  the  Lord,  our  Day. 


Yet  day-break  is  upon  us :  would  men  open 
Senses  to  God  as  they  to  nature  ope, 

The  bars  of  third  dimension  might  be  broken  : 
Then  in  an  hour  the  dark,  wherein  they  grope, 

Stumble  and  perish,  melt  to  royal  light, 

So  to  restore  the  paradisal  sight. 

3 

Millions  there  are  who  grope  and  stumble  so  : 
All  days  hold  pit-falls  and  all  nights  are  snares  : 

The  third  dimension  will  not  have  them  go  : 
Conflicts  unknown  inexplicable  theirs ; 

For  throughness,  urging  on  to  motions  free, 

Is  girt  by  anarchy  and  tyranny. 

4 

Thus  the  last  struggle  centers  in  the  brain. 

The  fourth  dimensioned  mind  its  organ  forms, 
But  growing  on,  its  lucid  orb  to  gain, 

Shapes  its  new  motion  through  resistant  storms 
Each  sympathetic  nerve  is  grasped  in  strain. — 
Hold  faithlv  now  ;  hold  to  the  Lord  One-Twain. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  15 


Here  is  Religion's  last  annunciation  ; 

Lord  Christus  claims  the  mortal  battle  field  ; 
By  immanation  moves  to  emanation ; 

Speeds  on  to  evidence,  our  Sun  and  Shield. 
The  fourth  dimension,  rounding  through  the  third, 
Makes  nature  all  an  out-field  for  the  Word. 


VII. 


1 

The  fourth  is  nothing  if  not  practical ; 

'Tis  order,  law  and  service  everywhere  ; 
No  place  therein  to  dally  or  to  fall. 

'Tis  Theosocialism  fills  the  air  ; 

Heart  led  through  heart  and  hand  led  free  through  hand  ; 
All  throughnesses  in  throughness  of  God's  land. 

2 

Upon  the  fact  of  throughness,  interunion, 
Pivots  the  wheel  that  fashions  all  the  space. 

Feeling,  thought,  passion,  in  divine  communion 
Through  all  to  each,  find  freedom  and  embrace, 

Repose  and  action  are  as  night  and  day, 

All  march  of  sun-force  and  all  stars  in  play, 

3 

I  saw  a  king,  on  earth  a  Methodist, 

The  founder  of  such  service,  and  he  said, 

"I  Wesley  was;  here  twain-one  I  persist, 
Fulfilling  that  whereto  my  life  was  led 

When,  in  the  wilds  of  labor-time  below, 

I  thought  to  plant  for  God  and  have  it  grow. 


16  CONVERSATION    IN    H  E  A  V  E  N  . 

4 

"  Now  here,  behold,  is  God-wrought  Methodism 
In  fourth  dimension  :  to  its  kingdom  feel. 

Stript  of  the  limitations  that  make  schism, 
I  serve  as  pivot  of  its  social  wheel. 

The  fourth,  to  the  extreme  in  God,  its  wall, 

Is  one  in  many  kingdoms,  each  in  all." 


A  man  of  deeds,  a  Priest  Napoleon, 

I  read  in  Wesley  to  his  Word-filled  heart ; 

Read  him  in  fact  as  now  a  king,  twain-one 
By  inter-througlmess  with  his  counterpart. 

Tis  through  Religion,  by  its  work  of  grace, 

Kingdoms  are  nurtured  for  celestial  space. 

6 

True  growth  depends  on  order  for  its  wheel  : 
On  ordered  growth  all  human  good  depends : 

The  laws  of  order  in  their  course  reveal 
The  paths  of  order  to  creation's  ends  : 

The  ends  of  order  in  result  display 

The  Word  Twain-One,  the  Life,  the  Truth,  the  Way, 


'Tis  so  mankind  escapes  its  limitations  ; 

By  throughness  finds  the  infinite  career ; 
Led  by  continuous  and  discrete  gradations, 

Throughness  in  throughness  opening  sphere  by  sphere. 
Man,  who  in  order  to  result  has  trod, 
Dwells  by  full  consciousness  in  God  with  God. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  17 

8 

Only  the  thorough  may  attain  to  througlmess. 

"Do  what  thou  hast  to  do  with  all  thy  might" ; 
Move  on  thereby  in  the  eternal  newness, 

Led  so  to  victor}7  from  sight  to  sight. 
"No  age  makes  impotent,  no  custom  stales"; 
The  infinite  variety  prevails. 

9 

The  third  dimension  lastly  satiates ; 

It  keeps  no  final  good  for  man  in  store. 
The  joy  stood  tip-toe  ;  through  the  opening  gates 

It  sped,  to  vanish  and  return  no  more  : 
The  blissful  cup,  from  lip  to  lip  that  passed, 
But  held  and  gave  exhaustion  at  the  last. 

10 

This  is  the  bitterness  that  hides  behind 

These  mortal  confines :  Wordless  shadows,  dead 

To  all  but  life's  appearance,  merely  find 
Their  third  dimension  to  its  vapor  spread. 

To  bleak  old  age,  in  impotency  curled, 

Coils  the  man  ego  in  the  under  world. 

VIII. 


1 

Come  forth  in  this  imperial  warm  July. 

The  nation  to  the  Twain-One  bows  no  knee 
Constant  it  is  to  claim  and  glorify 

False  ego's  base  non-human  liberty  : 
It  grinds  as  Egypt  did  the  serfs  to  dust  : 
Its  glaive  is  sharpened  at  the  Word  to  thrust. 

2 


18  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


Its  greatness  is  not  substance,  'tis  inflation, 
Herculean  pride  that  mounts  before  the  fall : 

Progress  but  seems,  'tis  mere  deterioration. 

Now,  woven  through  glad  sunshine,  floats  a  pall. 

Falsehood  and  evil  by  rank  commerce  breed 

Swarmed  spores,  upon  all  mortal  flesh  to  feed. 

3 

Man's  form  of  volatiles  must  lose  cohesion  : 
"Dust  that  he  is,  to  dust  he  shall  return." 

Organs,  that  ope  by  many  a  sightless  lesion, 

Hold  secret  wounds  that  bleed  and  weep  and  burn. 

The  fetid  generations  of  the  spore 

Lead  vegetative  death  from  sore  to  sore. 

4 

Elijah  had  his  ravens,  and  they  fed  him 

All  the  dread  years  when  baal's  priests  held  sway. 

The  cave  for  shelter  opened  to  bestead  him, 
Holding  a  shadow  wrought  for  kindlier  day. 

The  fourth  dimension  now  gives  open  arms 

To  shield  God's  prophets  from  the  last  alarms. 


Alone  and  still  alone,  amid  the  millions 

Who  throng  the  parks,  the  avenues  and  drives, 

I  hear  the  minstrels  in  the  gay  pavilions, 
But  see  the  worm  that  in  the  players  thrives. 

Reddens  the  gold  that  crowns  on  summer's  brow, 

But  death  is  harvest  that  is  ripening  now. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  19 


6 

Death  has  inclosed  the  planet,  and  it  journeys 
Till  all  its  multitudes  in  one  are  wound  ; 

Till  all  are  as  the  fuel  in  the  furnace  ; 

Till  all  are  pierced  into  their  inmost  ground, 

And  those  who  hold,  from  those  who  shun  the  fourth, 

Severed  as  babes  are  from  the  after-birth. 


Here  is  no  hiding  place ;  all  now  who  hide 
Must  occultly  in  one  vast  plexus  meet ; 

All  men  to  reach  the  cliffs  of  one  divide ; 
All  from  the  planet's  brow  unto  its  feet. 

All  men,  all  molecules  of  men,  must  feel 

And  turn  and  change  when  God  is  made  the  Wheel. 


Heights  of  dimension,  in  surcharged  increase, 

The  ruinous  and  final  fall  precede  ; 
All  breadths  of  empires  sunder  piece  by  piece 

To  the  last  broken  wall  and  moldering  weed  ; 
All  lengths  of  pleasures,  at  the  fated  spot, 
Dissolve  as  empires  fail  and  ages  rot. 

9 

Now  Judgment,  as  the  Mother,  calls  to  me, 

And  I  must  sit  within  Her  awful  doors, 
Till  ends  "the  strange  eventful  history" 

Of  time,  and  paradise  its  bloom  restores ; 
Till  the  new  lengths  and  breadths  and  heights,  concealed 
In  the  Word's  fourthness,  show  an  open  field. 


20  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


IX. 


1 

Judgment,  She  sits  apart  in  palace  gardens, 
Throned  in  the  true,  the  sacred,  the  sublime. 

Her  holiness  from  brow  to  feet  She  hardens 
To  breast  and  penetrate  resistant  crime. 

Her  lips,  whereto  God's  lips  their  seal  have  set, 

Hold  silence ;  there  the  dews  of  sleep  are  met. 


Silence  and  sleep  !  sure-stepping,  sweet  and  saintly, 
Divine  Night-Walker,  in  a  wondrous  dream, 

Where  the  white  stars  like  water-lilies  faintly 
Ope  their  pale  petals  on  the  azure  stream, 

She  keeps  the  ways  of  the  mysterious  round, 

Circling  the  planet,  feeling  to  its  bound. 

3 

In  the  warm  sun-sphere's  glowing  undulations 
She  orbs  Her  presence  as  a  lovelier  moon. 

The  interstellar  ether  leads  vibrations, 
Born  of  Her  motion,  to  a  low  sweet  tune, 

A  crooning  melody,  a  flying  charm 

Touching  the  sense  to  soothe  its  last  alarm. 

4 

As  the  brook's  waters  in  a  summer  spate 

The  broidered  meadow  banks  may  overbrim, 

Judgment  is  gliding,  kindly,  delicate, 

Orbed  in  pure  ether,  wakening  that  sweet  hymn  ; 

Touching  slow,  surely,  till  by  calm  consent 

All  human  lives  in  one  repose  are  blent. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  2l 


5 

Come  forth  with  me  again  while  heavens  dissolve 

A  dewy  tenderness  :  a  manifold, 
Ripe  richness,  that  the  pleasances  evolve, 

Feeds  the  warm  sense :  men  hearten  blithe  and  bold. 
Nature  has  donned  the  matron ;  she  has  pressed 
All  living  creatures  to  her  flowing  breast. 

6 

Yet  see  !  through  all  this  bravery  of  apparel 

Nature  is  changing  to  another  style. 
Heights,  lengths  and  breadths  the  peoples  hold  in  quarrel. 

This  is  a  weary  time  ;  beneath  the  smile 
Of  solar  lips  that  kiss  the  toiling  race 
The  secret  pestilence  makes  eager  pace. 


X. 


1 
The  Holiness  of  holiness  displays 

Beauties  from  Beauty  in  Her  hallowed  mart. 
Supreme  arch-nature  to  its  form  arrays 

In  the  perfections  of  transcendent  art. 
By  change  on  change  from  scene  to  scene  we  pass, 
As  living  radiance  through  translucent  glass. 

2 

"When  the  without  shall  be  as  the  within 
The  kingdom  cometh  "  ;  so  the  Master  spake, 

Meaning  the  throughness,  led  the  world  to  win, 
Throughness  by  throughness,  till  mankind  awake ; 

While  then  the  pure  in  heart,  by  faith  who  trod, 

Shall  put  on  heaven  and  "in  their  flesh  see  God." 


22  CONVERSATION    IN 


3 

Heaven  crowds  not  011  mankind  as  to  encroach. 

By  the  full  being  in  full  play  we  move, 
So  keeping  pace  with  the  divine  approach. 

Advance  is  in  the  sympathy  of  love  ; 
God  feeling  forth  in.  us  the  more  we  feel, 
Till,  life  in  life,  all  lives  His  Life  reveal. 


XL 


1 

The  house  wherein  we  dwell  is  moving :  see ! 

The  interstellar  ether  breathes  to  fire  : 
The  spirits  of  the  atoms,  wondrously 

As  living  sparks,  within  their  orbs  respire. 
Feel  to  the  motion ;  feel  and  so  behold ; 
The  new-born  order  turns  upon  the  old. 


The  fourth  dimension  presses  on  the  third 
That  suffocates  the  just  in  living  graves. 

"To  resurrection!"  calls  the  Bridal  Word, 
In  power  that  thrills  and  liberates  and  saves. 

It  is  the  many  who  as  one  shall  hear ; 

Then  through  that  manifold  the  Word  appear. 

3 

Here  is  no  tumult  of  the  throbbing  drums, 
No  sounding  of  the  bugles  for  parade. 

Mute  as  the  gathering  snowfall  Judgment  comes 
In  Her  white  livery  is  the  world  arrayed. 

The  vast  scene-curtain  must  remain  intact 

Till  expectation  merges  in  the  act. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVED.  23 

4 

Men  move  with  faces  turned  from  one  another. 

Judgment  revealing  shall  the  faces  turn ; 
All  Her  elect,  the  world-wide  sister-brother, 

Shall  face  to  face  with  kindlier  ardors  burn, 
And  see  one  face  beaming  through  all  at-one, 
God's  face  reflected  through  each  daughter-son. 

5 

Men  toil,  worn  swimmers  in  a  ghastly  torrent, 
Each  striking  out  alone  to  breast  the  stroom. 

The  whirling  waves,  drawn  to  an  upward  current, 
Shall  lift  them  glowing  o'er  the  watery  doom  ; 

Lift  them  on  Judgment's  breast  in  time  and  tone 

To  Life's  arisen  land,  their  own,  Her  own. 

6 

Judgment  involves  man's  fleshly  particles  : 
His  atoms  are  in  judgment  and  they  know. 

The  third  dimension's  movement  stuns  or  kills 
Man's  apprehensive  sense  ;  he  lieth  low  ; 

His  prison  overcomes  him,  and  the  maze 

Of  memory,  and  its  labyrinthine  ways. 

7 

Earth  stands  in  Judgment  and  it  knows  it  not : 
Earth  looks  in  Judgment  and  no  sights  aver ; 

Learning,  grown  magical,  from  time  would  blot 
Faith's  last  lone  spark  lit  in  the  sepulcher ; 

Yet  there  it  swims  aloft  o'er  trance  and  swoon, 

Her  sign  in  heaven,  the  cold,  white  Judgment  moon. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


XII. 


1 

The  path  of  years  is  by  a  single  thread, 

Like  the  tense  nerve  that  spans  Niagara's  chasm. 

Decisively  in  the  brave  prime  we  tread 

Till  the  worn  line  beneath  us  writhes  in  spasm. 

The  steps  at  last  are  timorous,  feeble,  slow  ; 

One  inadvertence  leads  the  overthrow. 

2 

The  round  of  years  is  by  a  breadth  that  narrows  ; 

We  fasten  then  like  limpets  to  the  rock. 
Exultantly  we  raced  as  fiery  arrows, 

Nor  feared  the  piercing  place,  nor  shunned  the  shock. 
Foot  fast  and  hand  fast,  narrowed  to  the  cell, 
Prisoned  from  spacial  freedom  we  must  dwell. 


The  rise  of  years  is  by  an  height  that  climbs 
Upward  still  upward  ;  perilous  the  steep. 

Resistances  increase  with  ageing  times ; 
We  chill  and  stiffen  till  we  fall  asleep. 

Ways  that  were  wreathed  with  blossom  wind  in  thorns 

Till  death  o'ertakes  us  on  the  silver  horns. 

4 

Bounded,  aye  bounded  by  the  fateful  three, 
The  weird  three  beldames  of  our  mortal  state, 

We  still  are  subjects  of  uncertainty. 
Our  nearing  obsequies  we  celebrate  ; 

Shrink  from  the  sunbeam,  cower  before  the  blast, 

Till  length,  breadth,  height  for  mortal  aid  are  past. 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN.  25 

5 

Yet  "thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity" 
Should  hold  swift  wings  in  us  to  aid  the  rise. 

Forces  that  but  exhaust  should  multiply, 
Renewed  in  nervous  power  that  never  dies ; 

And  joys,  their  organs  that  by  use  efface, 

Transform  them  fitly  for  the  deathless  race. 

6 

Two  gravitations  in  the  world  persist, 

This  to  the  center,  that  one  to  the  sphere. 

Man  has  the  loftier  gravitation  missed ; 

Both  were  his  guerdon  did  the  Word  appear. 

The  two  when  rightly  found  are  twain-in-one : 

Their  roimdings  open  from  and  to  the  sun. 

7 

A  law  exists  that  mortals  do  not  know, 

Whereby  two  currents,  moving  equably 
And  side  by  side  in  the  same  river  flow, 

May  lead  the  waters  from  or  to  the  sea. 
The  valley  springs,  when  Wisdom  comes  to  guide, 
May  flow  as  brooks  that  climb  the  mountain  side. 

8 

Loosen  the  reflex  might  in  gravitation, 
Then,  held  obedient  in  the  Master's  hand, 

Swift  powers,  that  hold  the  planets  in  their  station, 
Will  serve  for  motive  force  by  sea  and  land. 

Wed  science  into  God  the  Word,  and  then 

All  heavens  and  earths  will  meet  for  mights  in  men. 


26  c  ok  visits  AT  ioft  IN  JIEAVE&. 

9 

"  Make  nature  plastic"  ;  this  is  the  command : 
Loosen  the  vigor  where  it  numbs  and  hides. 

Evolve  the  scheme  the  Sovereign  Artist  planned. 
Abide  in  Truth  for  powers  that  truth  provides. 

Find  Helios-Christus ;  bid  your  hearts  go  still, 

Nerved  and  responsive  to  the  Word,  our  will. 

XIII. 

1 

Science  is  turning  slowly  to  retrace 

The  stream  that  burst  from  eden's  wounded  side. 
Wallace  owns  truths  that  Darwin  did  not  face, 

And  Huxley  laws  that  Spencer  dare  not  bide. 
He  who  smites  Word  Incarnate  as  a  stone 
Upon  that  rock  is  broken  bone  by  bone. 

2 

No  scientist  of  modern  time  has  wrought 
Unwitting  loss  like  that  one  ;  he  has  led 

Learned  multitudes  to  subterfuge  of  thought ; 
Fed  them  with  dust,  denied  the  living  bread ; 

Clerkly  in  robes  pontifical  has  trod, 

Intoning  scriptures  of  the  anti-god. 

3 

Needs  must  it  be  that  time  should  breed  offenses ; 

But  woe  to  those  by^  whom  offense  uprears, 
Who  outrage  the  regenerative  senses 

And  steep  the  mind  in  ruins,  faints  and  fears. 
The  thinking  ego,  to  dead  thirdness  grown, 
In  nature  thinks  the  throughness  to  disown. 


27 


Such  hands  have  decked  the  glittering  golden  bed, 
Blazoned  with  seeming  wisdom  and  renown, 

Where  to  the  pleasurable  fiction  wed 
The  cultured  egoists  in  ease  lie  down, 

Lost  to  the  Word -light  and  its  life  supreme, 

Lost  in  the  evolution  of  a  dream. 


The  culture  by  whose  outgrowth  God  recedes 
From  apprehensive  sense  is  but  a  cheat. 

Still  'tis  the  Spirit  in  mankind  who  pleads, 

Yet  pleads  no  more  when  men  with  fiction  meet, 

And  woo  her,  and  embrace  her,  and  instill 

Her  essences  and  with  her  body  fill. 

6 

O,  thou  whose  lips  the  Living  Christ  have  kissed, 

Pure  priest  John  Pulsford, — dear  and  honored  name,- 

Than  Spencer  thou  art  wiser  scientist ; 

The  Holy  Ghost  breathes  in  thee  for  a  flame, 

And  lo !  the  fiery  tongues  have  touched  thy  brow  ; 

The  quickening  splendors  through  thy  speech  avow. 


XIV. 

1 

Mankind  tends  not  to  social  unity ; 

Not  here  the  people's  paradise  is  found. 
The  bases  of  divine  community 

Are  as  a  land  beneath  the  deluge  drowned. 
Those  who  for  throughriess  with  each  other  dwell 
Live  but  as  tenants  of  the  diving  bell. 


28  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


2 

So  "Lool^ng  Backward"  is  the  scholar's  dream, 

Like  Campanella's  "  City  of  the  Sun." 
The  vultures  of  the  press  exultant  scream 

O'er  ruined  nests  of  social  doves  undone. 
A  fading  mist  of  honors  not  to  be 
Proves  Mexico's  feigned  eden  by  the  sea. 

3 

All  progress  in  the  third  dimension  tends 

To  dissolution  ;  Spencer  saw  it  well. 
All  creatures  who  hold  thirdness  for  their  ends 

The  substance  of  life's  energy  expel. 
All  men,  all  worlds,  from  fourthness  that  recoil, 
Abide  in  death ;  for  death  to  death  they  toil. 

4 

The  third  dimension  shapes  an  alphabet, 

Wherefrom  the  language  of  the  fourth  is  woven  ; 

A  stone,  for  carving  of  the  statue  set ; 

A  shell,  that  for  the  germ's  young  growth  is  cloven ; 

Dust,  that  for  impregnation  vainly  plies, 

Till  God  shall  breathe  through  it  and  heaven  arise. 

5 

The  fourth  is  fashioned  in  reality ; 

The  wakeful  substance  of  all  glorious  dreams, 
It  floats,  a  deathless  ideality, 

O'er  nature's  realm,  and  through  its  shadow  gleams. 
Substance  and  seeming  touch ;  their  lines  are  met ; 
Substance  in  seeming  must  its  form  beget. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  29 


XV. 


1 

If  e'er  the  fourth  dimensioned  man  should  stand 
Rounding  the  surface,  cultured  and  equipped, 

All  would  be  plastic  to  his  vibrant  hand  : 
With  justice  hearted  and  with  mercy  lipped, 

His  path  would  open  swift  and  sure  and  clean 

By  Worded  force,  owned  as  "the  Nazarene." 


George  Fox  divined  the  truth  in  non-resistance. 

Fight  not  by  methods  that  the  third  affords  ; 
Feel  to  the  force  held  in  the  Word's  persistence. 

One  man  is  mightier  than  unnumbered  swords: 
If  through  his  frame  arch-stellar  ether  flows 
The  world  must  yield,  though  all  the  world  oppose. 


See  Jiow  the  Lady  Moon  is  stooping  now, 
Vailing  in  human  cloud  Her  argent  breast. 

Feel  to  Her  presence  by  the  lifted  brow, 
The  bosom  of  impatience  dispossest. 

God-time  is  still-time  ;  to  the  silence  feel ; 

It  holds  for  Truth  a  form  of  living  steel. 

4 

Withdraw  into  the  stillness,  till  the  motion 
Of  God  in  throughness  tunes  the  mind  aright. 

Lifting  to  ardors  of  serene  devotion, 
The  soul  is  energized  by  God  in  sight. 

Hold  to  the  silence,  so  that  Judgment  glides 

To  permeate  the  sense  by  flowing  tides. 


30  C  O  N  V  E  R  S  A  T  I  O  X    I  N    H  E  A  .  V  E  N  . 

5 

So  find  the  sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  God, 
The  silence  of  the  ages  and  their  end. 

So  hold  through  silence  for  a  judgment  rod, 
Meeting  the  foemen  where  they  most  offend. 

All  roads  of  last  advance  to  Judgment  run  ; 

Go  clad  with  silence  till  the  end  is  won. 


In  the  solemnities  with  Peace  abide, 

Peace,  the  white  harbinger  who  folds  the  pall, 

Vailing  the  planet,  while  the  winds  divide 
From  azure  air  and  voices  fail  and  fall. 

Solemn  and  still  and  peaceful  be  our  tread, 

Hearts  to  the  heart  of  God  in  mercy  wed. 

7 

See  how  huge  unbeliefs  mankind  obsess, 

Soulless  and  shrineless,  whilst  the  virgin  Faith, 

Whose  lips  are  pressed  to  God  for  holiness, 
Is  counted  as  a  void  and  wandering  wraith. 

See,  and  while  Faith  to  God  thy  sense  attunes, 

Lead  faith  to  throughness  ere  the  planet  swoons. 

8 

Faith  is  pavilioned  in  eternity  ; 

There  she  inhabits  God,  her  deathless  prime. 
The  fourth  dimension  shapes  her  liberty  ; 

Thence  rounds  she  to  illuminate  in  time. 
All  virtues  are  for  stars  in  her  right  hand, 
And  miracle  is  wrought  her  blossomed  wand. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  31 


9 

Enter  Religion  as  a  secret  door, 

And  in  Religion  shrine  thy  vital  prayers. 

So  to  Religion  yield  thy  all  for  store, 

And  for  Religion  bear  thy  constant  cares. 

For  thy  old  self,  abolished  and  o'erthrown, 

Put  on  Religion's  throughness,  made  thine  own. 

XVI. 

1 

Carved  are  the  starred  and  oriented  cliffs 
With  stately  images  of  Truth  sublime  : 

Wisdom  has  traced  in  glowing  hieroglyphs 
Her  scriptures  of  the  grand  pre-mortal  time. 

By  throughness  thought  may  open  to  behold, 

Reading  the  past  whence  futures  are  foretold. 


In  simple  Piety,  through  time  who  keeps 
A  noiseless,  humble  and  sequestered  way, 

An  influence  presses  from  those  upper  deeps  ; 
Opens,  enlarges,  quickens,  as  the  day 

That  glows  through  lowly  corn-blades  where  they  spring, 

Pregnant  with  gold  grain  for  the  harvesting. 


Sweet  Piety,  in  purity  who  bides, 

Holding  heart,  sense,  imagination  clean, 

Es  blest  and  nurtured  by  arch-stellar  tides, 
Borne  in  the  throughness  of  the  Nazarene. 

The  highest  heaven,  by  ways  no  mortals  ken, 

Touches  to  serve  the  lowliest  of  men. 


32  CON  V  ERS  AT  I  ON    IN    HEAVEN. 


4 

'Tis  here  the  fourth  dimension  holds  in  store 

Faith's  mightiest  miracle  ;  through  these  may  pass 

Powers  that  the  ancient  heavens  to  birth  upbore  ; 
God  as  clear  light  in  many-colored  glass ; 

Transfiguration  led  through  soul  to  sense ; 

Man  radiant  in  the  Word's  magnificence. 


Under  time's  wintry  crust  such  summer  sleeps 
As  God  for  lowly  meekness  holds  in  trust. 

The  fiery  flood,  mortality  that  steeps, 

Weaves  immortality  through  human  dust. 

She  for  the  lilies'  bloom  who  erst  revealed 

In  deathless  blossom  wreathes  Her  savior-field. 

6 

A  quickening  spirit  in  the  verse  is  led. 

Souls  in  pure  piety  who  feel  the  strains, 
Though  stretched  by  age  on  time's  procrustean  bed, 

May  find  by  faith  a  music  in  the  veins. 
As  the  vibrations  through  the  senses  chord 
Their  flesh  will  quicken,  it  has  touched  the  Lord. 

XVII 


1 

The  Suffering  Master  spake,  "  sleep  on,  sleep  well," 

When  those  who  should  have  watched  for  Him  had  slept, 

Such  words  through  ages  bear  a  burial  knell. 
Woe  to  the  city  where  no  watch  is  kept, 

The  city  Man  ;  safety  impinges  still 

Upon  the  continuity  of  will. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  33 


The  tides  will  ebb  that  bore  him  to  success ; 

Against  the  torrent  he  must  swim  or  row. 
The  seas  will  rise  his  foothold  to  possess  ; 

He  must  build  up  to  meet  the  overflow. 
Trust  not  in  God  to  lift  thee  o'er  the  waves, 
Only  as.JIe  through  thine  own  courage  saves. 

3 

Great  men,  great  ages,  fail  by  drowsiness. 

Ne'er*  must  he  slumber,  though  to  sleep  he  seem, 
Who  would  by  throughness  his  new  earth  possess. 

'Tis  continuity  of  will  supreme, 
Held  firm  in  ?God  and  to  His  purpose  wed, 
That  leads  deliverance  where  hope  lay  dead. 

4 

For  "  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity," 
Hold  thought  that  clasps  eternity  in  time. 

Build  firmness  through  thy  frame's  infirmity ; 
Through  age  elaborate  the  vital  prime. 

Call  not  on  Jupiter  to  lift  thy  wheel, 

But  heave  till  thou  shalt  Zeus  within  thee  feel. 


Build  firmness  into  throughness,  till  it  breeds 
Through  thy  full  bosom,  fronts  to  orb  the  brain ; 

Build  it  in  righteousness  until  it  leads 
Motion  before  thee  as  a  flying  train  ; 

Hold,  till  its  outbirth  makes  thy  sure,  swift  glance 

A  splendor  from  the  Infinite  advance. 
3 


34  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


6 

Take  Purpose  for  thy  watchful  bedfellow  ; 

Rest  in  her  arms  and  rise  in  her  embrace ; 
Shrine  her  within  thy  being  till  she  go 

As  Winged  Victory  before  thy  face. 
Make  purpose  final,  shaping  to  a  rod 
That  smites  earth's  granite  for  the  streams  of  God. 


This  is  the  art  of  the  true  alchemist, 

Transmuting  earth's  dead  dross  to  heaven's  live  gold 
Distilling  from  the  vague  aerial  mist 

The  interstellar  ethers,  till  they  hold 
And  weave  about  thee  for  pure  robes  of  flame, 
To  show  thee  forth  in  Him  who  overcame. 


XVIII. 

1 

The  revolution  of  the  Infinite 

Is  time  ;  and  space  the  orbing  of  its  whirl ; 
And  nature  in  a  motion  of  delight 

Originates,  and  thence  its  realms  unfurl, 
^f  thou  wouldst  be  true  man,  a  godlike  son, 
Think  thou  to  nature  as  in  God  begun. 

2 
The  universe  found  birth  in  a  delight, 

And  from  delight  and  to  delight  it  grows. 
Therein  be  thou  persistent  for  the  right, 

Till  through  thy  throughness  the  delights  unclose. 
Be  thou  delightsome,  sense  to  spirit  led : 
Think  God's  delight  into  thy  purpose  wed, 


CONVERSATION   IN    HEAVEN.  35 

3 

Serve  thus  the  golden  opportunity, 

Till  God's  rich  opportune  through  time  is  wound, 
And  heaven  and  earth  in  nuptial  unity 

Meet  the  Twain-Oneness,  and  delight  is  crowned, 
And  the  Bride-Bridegroom,  orbing  here  the  shrine, 
Make  earth-life  God-life,  humanly  divine. 

4 

Await,  await,  await !  be  temperate, 

Even  in  thought  of  such  delight  in  store. 

Care  for  thy  body,  as  made  delicate 

By  each  advance  to  the  transposive  door. 

Think  not  to  hasten  movement  by  excess 

Of  premature  nerve-action,  but  repress. 


"Grieve  not  the  spirit";  such  command  is  kept. 

Grieve  not  the  body  by  demands  unwise, 
For  thus  the  fervid  animates  are  swept 

From  the  vibrations  of  their  harmonies  ; 
And  on  these  harmonies,  led  to  their  ends, 
The  re-creation  of  the  flesh  depends. 

6 

But  think  to  rest  in  action,  rest  in  thought, 
Rest  in  emotion,  rest  in  soul  and  sense, 

Rest  in  all  burden  bearing, — self  as  nought ; 
A  quietude  made  more  through  loves  intense 

And  full  and  fruitful  as  the  harvest  noon. 

Hold  coolness  as  the  calm  white  Judgment  moon, 


36  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


7 

So  into  Judgment  let  the  mind  be  spaced, 
The  heart  determined  and  the  motion  timed, 

Till  time's  impatience  gently  is  effaced, 
And  the  gross  energy  of  will  sublimed, 

That  it  may  open  sweetly  to  the  tide 

Of  the  arch-stellar  ether  and  abide. 


XIX. 

1 

From  the  electric  man  came  man  of  stone  ; 

From  man  of  stone  the  man  of  flesh  was  led. 
By  such  descents,  mysterious  and  unknown, 

Grew  paradise,  the  soft  primeval  bed. 
The  weakest  of  the  races  and  their  last, 
Our  sires  were  offspring  from  the  loftier  past. 

2 

For  still  creations  in  their  course  declined, 

As  heats  decrease  by  distance  from  their  flame, 

Till  at  the  end  man  held  a  shadowed  mind, 
In  organs  frail  and  senses  that  were  shame. 

Decline  led  on  in  nature's  three-fold  mesh, 

Till  the  fourth  opened  in  the  "Word  made  flesh." 

3 

The  world,  the  times,  mankind  were  out  of  joint  ; 

Light  lessened  on  till  darkness  wove  a  span. 
He  was  the  Point  of  turn,  the  Pivot-Point 

On  whom  the  rounding  of  the  race  began. 
Here  the  "True  Light"  its  blossomed  rays  unfurled  ; 
Soft  as  the  dawn  of  dawn  He  touched  the  world. 


CONVERSATION    I  NJlEAVEN.  37 

4 

And  still  the  creature  in  the  bondage  held ; 

And  still  mankind,  as  death-doomed  captives  drest, 
Groped  in  the  notional  by  magic  spelled, 

Nor  dwelling  oped  for  Him  nor  wrought  a  rest. 
As  the  white  dove,  far  flying  from  its  mart, 
He  came  and  met  the  arrow  in  His  heart. 


XX. 


1 

God  changes  not,  yet  ever  is  in  change, 

By  aspect  to  His  varied  people  seen ; 
Now  in  the  near,  now  in  the  distant  range, 

Now  shown  through  tempest,  now  in  calm  serene. 
God  changes  not,  so  we  do  not  consume ; 
Yet  God  is  changed  to  us  from  bud  to  bloom. 

2 

The  evolution  in  God's  revolution 

Germs,  blossoms,  fruits;  germs,  blossoms,  fruits  anew. 
Crises  that  seem  but  fateful  dissolution 

Hold  the  Divine,  by  throughness  led  to  view. 
What  though  a  universe  should  fade  from  sight? 
Still  'twould  remain,  transformed  into  delight. 

3 

These  heavens  may  vanish  as  a  flying  scroll ; 

These  earths  mature  from  flower  to  fruit  and  cease  ; 
Yet  God  through  sense  may  form,  as  through  the  soul, 

And  natural  earth  to  human  earth  release. 
The  flying  wheels  of  time  in  Light  conceal 
Their  motion,  but  the  Force  will  not  repeal. 


CONVERSATION    IN    H  is  A  V  E  N '. 

4 

So  "God  fulfills  Himself  in  many  ways." 

Through  the  past  endings  the  new  worlds  began, 

He  is  the  Ancient  of  eternal  days, 

Yet  evermore  the  Youthful  Woman-Man. 

Formed  unto  us  for  righteousness,  we  dwell 

Of  Him  in  Him  for  Him  while  times  dispel. 


But  of  our  wantness  we  are  fullness  made. 

God,  being  Fullness  and  to  throughness  led, 
Clothes  us  as  lilies  of  the  stream,  arrayed 

In  light  and  in  its  loveliness  dispread. 
The  man-seed,  clad  by  Him  with  living  dust, 
So  finds  the  resurrection  of  the  just. 

6 

Twain  revelations  wed  by  living  thought ; 

The  Infinite,  that  for  its  finite  weaves 
Word  into  scripture,  finely  fitly  wrought, 

Substance  in  seeming  that  the  sense  receives. 
The  fourth  dimension  claims  the  third  its  own  ; 
Truth  is  made  flesh  of  flesh  and  bone  of  bone. 


XXI. 

1 

An  occult  shapes  outside,  did  men  but  know ; 

An  inner  nature  presses  to  enlarge. 
This  nature  that  wre  meet  will  overgrow 

And  senses  outen  on  to  find  its  marge  ; 
Eyes  ope  from  eyes  and  ears  from  ears  emband, 
Heart  duplicate  on  heart  and  hand  on  hand. 


CONVERSATION     IN    HEAVEN.  39 

2 

This  outness  on  man's  outnesses  will  form 
From  throughness  of  his  innesses  that  weave  ; 

Breath  double  for  the  doubled  lungs,  the  warm 
Sweet  ethers  that  by  truth  in  joy  receive. 

Growth  is  arrested  in  the  three-fold  lines ; 

Man  in  the  sense  of  observation  pines. 

3 

Man  is  the  slave  of  his  impediments ; 

The  psyche  sacrificed  within  its  shell ; 
Organs,  that  should  be  four-fold  implements 

Of  thought  and  feeling,  held  in  swoon  arid  spell. 
'Tis  as  if  man,  from  single-footed  spine, 
Felt  the  bound  complemental  limb  repine. 

4 

Man  thinks  to  death  as  for  a  free  escape ; — 

Outward  through  inuess  should  his  will  revolve. 

God  calls  to  outwardness  :  let  chasms  gape, 
To  overbridge  should  be  his  last  resolve. 

We  must  find  God  in  nature,  large  and  small. 

God  outens  to  be  made  the  All  in  all. 

5 

Nature  and  man  are  both  in  struggle  now : 
Nature  in  man  and  man  in  nature  nerves, 

Till  the  full  throughness  shall  through  both  avow, 
And  doubled  man  in  doubled  nature  serves ; 

More  valid  than  the  ancient  grecian  dream, 

Divine  olympus  o'er  his  vision  gleam. 


40  CONVERSATION     IN     HfiAVEN, 


6 

"The  expectation  of  the  creature  waits" 

Upon  the  hlanifest  immortal  men, 
To  whom  arch-stellar  ether  opes  its  gates. 

For  death  translation  waiteth  here  and  then. 
This  is  the  earliest,  latest  Christian  creed, 
Heaven  formed  in  earth  for  men  as  deaths  recede. 


Nature  grows  tenahtless  of  psychic  lives  ; 

The  nymph  and  dryad  vanished  long  ago; 
The  fay,  where  yet  his  gentle  race  survives, 

Lingers  in  hidden  haunts  that  men  forego. 
A  larvous  world,  bred  from  man's  ills  unclean, 
Infests  the  landscape,  wrought  in  the  obscene. 


Man  is  the  slayer ;  he  depopulates 

The  planet  in  his  fierce  pursuit  of  game. 

Where'er  he  moves  or  dwells  he  desolates  ; 
His  presence  breeds  a  base  magnetic  flame. 

He  generates  the  poison,  swift  or  slow,     -} 

Where  the  larves  hide  and  generate  and  grow. 

9 

So  in  the  venomed  sweat  and  deadly  spume 
Base  minds  grow  pregnant,  and  the  city's  dust 

Is  made  a  shadowy,  sepulchral  womb, 

Wherein  the  death-seed  fashion  from  his  lust. 

From  nature's  wounds  in  ceaseless  torrents  ply 

The  spoilers  of  his  flesh,  the  bacilli. 


N  1  fc  •  tt  E  A  V  E  N  .  -41 


XXII. 

1 

"Awake,  arise,  my  Love;  the  Spring  has  come  : 
Summer  her  breasts  of  bounty  will  not  vail. 

White  doves  shall  coo  where  throbbed  the  murderous  drum, 
And  for  the  war-call  chant  the  nightingale. 

Awake,  arise,  my  Love,  and  come  away";  — 

The  Bridegroom's  voice :  —  we  hear  as  lovers  may. 

2 

Nature  and  God,  to  man  they  both  inure ; 

Nature  for  seeming,  God  for  substance  makes  ; 
But  man  must  hold  the  substance  to  endure. 

Seeming,  a  bubble,  glistens,  orbs  and  breaks. 
Yet  substance  that,  through  seeming,  forms  and  plies 
Weaves  man's  new  likeness  lovely  in  God's  eyes. 

3 

When  thought  is  rising,  as  the  billows  roll 

In  bosomed  undulations  of  the  sea, 
Hold  thyself  o'er  it  in  a  calm  control, 

Like  sun-lit  heaven  in  pure  tranquillity ; 
Then  lead  thy  truths  to  heaven  by  steep  on  steep, 
As  forms  of  gods  ascending  from  the  deep. 

4 

Lift,  as  the  sun  lifts  waters  to  th3  cloud  : 

The  thought-sea  round  thy  orbing  space  expands, 

But  over  it  Intelligence  is  bowed 

To  rule  the  waters  and  to  loose  their  bands. 

Yea,  in  the  fourth  dimension  Truth  to  thee 

May  lead  the  human  people  of  the  sea. 


42  CONVERSATION    IN 


5 

The  immortality  that  Christus  taught, 
Divinely  natural,  when  grown  complete, 

With  full  redemption  for  mankind  was  wrought, 
Man's  fleshness  made  its  theater  and  seat. 

Its  inner  march  the  seer  of  Stockholm  shows ; 

Its  outer  end  by  throughness  must  disclose. 

6 

'Tis  victory  o'er  death,  till  death  be  slain  : 

Tis  victory  for  life,  till  life  shall  meet 
Its  vast  environment,  led  o'er  the  plane 

Of  its  organic  space  with  winged  feet. 
'Twas  through  such  outer  heaven, — His  own,  our  own,- 
The  Word  made  flesh  ascended  to  enthrone. 


Think  then,  think  faithly,  to  the  splendid  hours 

When  man,  his  fourthness  through  the  thirdness  led, 

Shall  climb  the  glorious  ascension  towers 

To  float  transfigured  where  his  heavens  dispread, 

Opening  through  radiant  vistas,  glowing  floors, 

Ethereal  seas,  to  paradisal  shores. 

XXIII. 

1 

Needs  must  it  be,  when  thought  awakes  to  double 

And  in  a  larger  throughness  to  expand, 
That  sense  should  be  in  fear  and  mind  in  trouble, 

And  airs  bring  burden  that  once  gently  fanned. 
Vale  of  death's  shadow,  fashioned  in  dismay, 
Through  this  the  dread,  unknown  transition  way. 


CONVERSATION     IN    HE  A  YEN.  48 

2 

To  reach  the  Motion  whereby  time  was  wrought, 
To  find  the  Substance  whereof  space  is  made, 

We  toil  by  nobler  will  in  nobler  thought, 
Yet  penetrate  where  light  is  lost  in  shade, 

Where  respiration  by  its  thirdness  ends. — 

The  vail  is  reached ;  that  vail,  it  lifts,  it  rends. 

3 

We  touch  the  limit  of  free  will's  persistence, 

As  realizable  in  third  dimension ; 
Yet  here  God  meets  us  by  a  new  existence, 

Wrought  from  the  Word  in  humanly  extension. 
The  bosom  opes  ;  a  warm  sweet  vapor  lyres  ; 
The  breath  of  God  inflows,  illumes,  inspires. 

4 

Borne  into  combat  by  the  breath  in  birth, 
Old  forces  fail,  then  rise  in  nascent  powers. 

Farewell  the  sensitive  delights  of  earth, 

Save  as  the  life-stalk  buds  for  heavenly  flowers. 

Farewell  the  homes  that  flesh  and  blood  made  sweet ; 

Our  frames  re-fashion  in  God's  furnace  heat. 


'Tis  a  dread  dying  of  man's  mortal  soul, 
Led  for  re-birth  in  an  immortal  germ, 

Whilst  yet  the  fleshly  form,  in  fixed  control 

Of  fourth  dimensioned  will,  holds  sure  and  firm. 

To  this,  by  calm  advance  of  powers  that  rise, 

We  haste,  nor  pause ;  who  pauses  falters,  dies. 


44  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


6 

Yet  the  new  natural  soul,  at  first  a  seed 

Sown  in  the  old  effete  infirmity, 
Must  that  infirmity  absorb,  implead, 

Lead  through  its  timeness  timed  eternity. 
Years  waste,  a  generation  fades  to  dust, 
The  man's  "I  will"  held  firm  in  God's  "thou  must." 


Here  ages  concentrate  to  mold  the  years  : 

Time  whirls,  space  flies  ;  the  man  of  anguish,  led 

Through  toils  that  ope  as  on  envenomed  spears, 
Must  feed  on  agonies  as  Christus  fed ; 

Must  "live  the  Life,"  must  hold  a  secret  care 

For  all  in  all  who  strive  the  life  to  share. 

8 

More  than  the  patriot,  prophet,  bard  or  seer, 

Concentered  ever  to  economize, 
He  must  build  road-ways  as  the  pioneer, 

Nor  any  toil  of  any  use  despise  ; 
For  vital  health  bound  in  the  wasting  stand, 
Yet  move  by  occult  skill  from  land  to  land. 


XXIV. 


1 

The  strong  man  of  the  third  dimension  narrows 
To  rule,  a  chief;  the  weak  to  crouch,  a  slave. 

The  weak  pipe  feebly  as  the  thieving  sparrows ; 
The  strong  cut  keenly  as  the  sharpened  glaive. 

So  egosocialism  plumes  its  hordes, 

As  flights  of  sparrows,  hurled  upon  the  swords. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HE  A  YEN.  45 


Man  from  his  wolfness  changes  to  a  lamb, 
Owning  the  "Lamb  of  God"  by  sinners  slain. 

To  bless  is  dangerous,  more  safe  to  damn, 

Where,  in  the  third,  Power  rules  by  arts  profane. 

To  "turn  the  other  cheek"  when  evil  smites 

Provokes  contempt  from  the  shrewd  knave  who  fights. 


That  God  should  see  His  Word-Form  crucified, 
Scourged,  buffeted  and  trampled  to  the  grave, 

Is  all  incredible ;  but  as  allied 

To  this,  that  He  arose  in  might  to  save. 

By  this  that  resurrection  proves  its  worth, 

The  third  dimension  lifted  in  the  fourth. 

4 

Saint  Paul  spake  true ;  this  is  the  crucial  fact. 

Else  were  our  faith,  our  wounds,  our  labors  vain. 
Most  miserable  we,  in  frauds  compact, 

If  He  arose  not  who  to  save  was  slain. 
He  freed  the  psyche  to  its  utmost  floor, 
Led  heaven  through  earth  ;  His  body  made  the  door. 


To  the  learned  greek  such  faith  was  foolishness  ; 

A  stumbling  block  to  gentile,  as  to  jew. 
Vague  spiritism  from  the  flesh  may  press, 

Denying,  failing  where  the  Word  forms  through. — 
Outward  our  movement  to  the  many-one, 
Heaven's  luminous  orbed  angels  of  the  sun. 


46  CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 


XXV. 

1 

Thousands  of  generations  now  look  down 
Upon  us  from  time's  shattered  pyramids : 

Cycles  of  ages  now  look  up  and  frown 

Through  stony  eyeballs  from  their  coffin  lids. 

To  breast  the  third  dimension's  battling  storm, 

We  bear  the  banners,  hol'd  the  fourth  in  form. 


'Tis  the  world's  crisis,  pregnant  all  with  fate  : 
The  hours  haste,  lifting  silence  on  their  wings. 

The  powers  that  desolate  or  consecrate 
Encompass  or  incompass  ;  shadow  fling^ 

A  death-cloud  o'er  us  to  envail  the  scene  : 

Judgment  stoops  low  the  orb  to  overlean. 


In  the  deep  night-time,  when  the  specters  pass, — 
Specters  of  mortals  that  go  forth  in  sleep, — 

E'en  now  are  some  who  wail  "  alas,  alas  ! 
Our  city's  gates  are  broken,  and  the  steep 

Of  its  proud  vantage,  where  the  thrones  are  gilt 

For  splendor,  drips  with  blood  our  princes  spilt. 

4 

"And  many  captives,  who  to  build  its  mansions 
Spent  their  chained  lives  in  agonies  and  fears, 

Whose  life-blood  fertilized  the  rich  expansions, 

Crying  '  O  Lord  !  how  long  ? '  through  martyred  years, 

Are  hushed  to  silence  ;  but  their  hearts  the  more 

Heave  to  an  earthquake  'neath  the  city's  floor. 


CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 


"And  see  !  where  we  with  blackened  hands  have  blotten 
Our  names  from  somewhat  named  the  '  book  of  life,' 

And  thought  'no  god/  since  godness  was  forgotten, 
A  silence  falls  through  feastings  that  were  strife. 

Let  us  unto  the  rocks  and  mountains  call, 

That  they  may  hold  and  shield  ere  ruin  fall." 

XXVI. 

1 

There  comes  an  hour  when  the  importunate 

And  grasping  ego,  never  satisfied, 
Is  conquered,  and  its  cruel  jaws,  that  ate 

Into  the  soul's  new  substance,  are  denied, 
And  it  lies  down  to  impotent  decease  ; — 
From  structures  free  its  molecules  release. 


Thence,  caught  to  fourthness  in  the  flying  whirl, 
The  atoms  to  the  human  posture  rise ; 

A  radiant  image,  glowing  boy  or  girl, 
Formed  to  the  soul  for  its  new  destinies  ; 

A  double,  that  reflects,  repeats,  obeys 

The  Worded  man,  and  serves  for  all  his  ways. 


"Peace  give  1  you,"  the  Holy  Master  said ; 

"Not  as  the  world,  to  you  I  give  My  peace." 
He  held  such  unself  for  an  outer-stead, 

Likeness  in  image,  doubled  for  increase 
Of  power  and  grace  in  fourth  dimensioned  worth, 
Wrought  as  a  vital-form  of  heaven  in  earth, 


48  CONVERSATION    IN 


4 

So  we,  in  Him  who  conquer,  may  receive  ; 

For  the  unself  is  in  His  shadow  risen, 
To  brighten  in  His  shining  and  to  weave 

Swift,  wings  for  fetters  that  did  erst  imprison. 
Henceforth  reigns  peace  !  let  all  within  us  chord, 
For  all  within  is  union  with  ihe  Lord. 


This  is  nirvana  by  its  form  and  fact  : 

The  de\v-drop  glides  into  its  vital  sea ; 
A  unity  of  unities  compact, 

Orbed  in  the  flow  of  Orbed  Infinity  ; 
Led  in  the  bright  processions  of  the  stars, 
The  incarnations  and  the  avatars. 

6 

But  so  our  fleshiiess  may  revive  anew, 

In  a  regeneration  from  its  first ; 
Mankind  reenter  by  the  four-fold  clue, 

And  stand  to  serve  and  bless  to  last  and  worst ;  ....... 

By  a  circumference  the  planet  feel,  .    ;. 

Soft  as  the  dewdrop,  firm  as  living  steel. 

7 

Such  the  New  Life  i — Thence  we  are  heart-fasted 
To  God  Twain-One  by  constant  rites  divine, 

Whereof  the  world'  knows  not,  till  earth  is  wed 
To  heaven  :  —  the  Cross,  this  is  our  sacred  sigh ;  _ 

By  this  we  conquer: — when  all  force  had  failecl 

The  MASTER  came,  breathed  in  us  and  prevailed,         ;. 


PART    SECOND 


"When  this  corruptible  shall  have  put  on  incorruption, 
and  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality,  then  shall 
be  brought  to  pass  the  saying  that  is  written,  Death  is  swal- 
lowed up  in  victory." 

i  COR.  xv.  54. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN, 


XXVII. 


1 

EARTH  is  the  world  of  the  unfortunates. 

Judgment  I  saw  as  Fortune  on  Her  ball  : 
Her  countenance  to  heaven  illuminates  ; 

Earthward  it  wears  the  shadow  of  a  pall. 
'Tis  so  Her  shadow,  weaving  to  a  robe, 
Electric,  penetrative,  folds  the  globe. 

2 

An  hand  She  dipped  into  Her  roseate  breast 
And  from  it  flung  .aloft  a  silver  swan  ; 

It  floated  to  tlx-e  heaven  above  the  west, 
Then  met  t|ie  California!!  horizon. 

There  the  swan  jested,  crimsoning,  made  vast; 

The  wings  were  sunset,  folding  at  the  last, 

3 

Judgment,  Her  home  She  in  the  sunset  makes, 
For  She  is  Sunset  and  the  west  Her  own. 

Beneath  Her  breast  profound  Pacific  wakes  ; 
The  waters  quicken,  rounding  to  Her  throne. 

So  Judgment  waits * the  moment  of  incline  ; 

So  orbs  a  presence,--I£ortune,  made  divin%; 


52  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


4 

The  planet  lost  its  Fortune  in  the  past ; 

Grown  mortal  and  unfortunate  since  then. 
Judgment,  transformed  to  Fortune  at  the  last, 

Wings  the  divine  prosperities  again. 
Cleave  thou  to  Judgment  and  thy  Fortune  find  ; 
From  Her  full  bo^om  life's  full  gifts  unbind. 


Judgment  has  cleft  Her  winged  caduceus  ; 

From  either  branchlet  blooms  a  blossomed  rod  : 
Her  flower  of  grace  by  throughncss  drips  to  us 

Rock  honey,  where  we  journeyed  sorrow-shod. 
We  built  for  Her  like  swallows  in  the  cliff ; 
We  carved  its  lines  to  shape  Her  hieroglyph. 

6 

Now  the  sad  planet's  piercing  miserere, 

Borne  to  the  heart  of  Judgment,  silenced  there, 

Leaves  a  dull  ache  through  nations,  chilled  and  dreary 
As  frore  december,  broken,  bruised  and  bare. 

Heartache,  numbed  in  heart  hunger,  grieves  to  sleep  ; 

To  frozen  seas  the  stormy  passions  heap. 


So  Judgment  feels,  the  planet's  heart  to  find, 
To  hold  and  fill  and  form  a  silence  there  ; 

But  o'er  the  west  Her  odorous  breaths  unbind, 
And  through  the  sunset  streams  Her  golden  hair. 

Lo,  there  !  — aloft,  while  yet  the  mists  conceal, 

Waits  Judgment, —  Fortune,  leaning  on  her  wheel ! 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  53 


XXVIII. 

1 

The  fourth  dimensioned  man,  as  tiineness  narrows 
And  panic  in  the  Commonwealth  anears, 

Feels  the  advance  ;  'tis  as  if  living  arrows 

By  throughness  pierced  the  earthly,  atmospheres  ; 

While  the  swift  darts,  illumined  as  they  pass, 

Burn  as  clear  sunbeams  borne  through  tinted  glass. 


Man  is  in  wound,  encompassed  by  vibration  ; 

In  time  and  tone  he  labors,  thinks  and  feels, 
The  motion  of  the  Word  his  habitation. 

Judgment  is  turning  by  Her  wheel  in  wheels  : 
Fortune,  aggressive,  mailed  in  breathing  balm, 
Uplifts  the  spear,  the  lily  and  the  palm. 


Her  occult  wave,  ethereal  yet  oceanic, 

Swims  through  all  avenues  of  trade  and  strife ; 

'Tis  realized  first  as  industrial  panic, 
A  causeless  tremor  of  the  public  life. 

More,  more  !  man's  molecules  are  set  a-flow  : 

The  breathful  doom-trump  circles  Jericho. 

4 

Such  quivering,  through  the  molecules  led  on, 
Precedes  the  march  of  the  celestial  host. 

That  sign  in  western  heaven,  the  crimson  swan, 
Heralds  advance  through  continent  from  coast. 

Judgment  is  heavened  to  breath  of  breast  and  brow 

Judgment,  when  earthened,  will  by  this  avow. 


54  CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN. 


Men  lean  upon  each  other,  in  surprise 

That  panic  should  o'er-ride  where  wealth  ahode. 

Men  hold  to  men  for  strength  to  energize, 
Feeling  the  mutual  safeties  overflowed. 

The  sense  of  common  peril  thrills  the  mart, 

Where  they  to  spoil  each  other  strove  apart. 

6 

Judgment  is  fourth  dimensioned,  is  celestial. 

Behold  Her  in  such  glorious  biding  place  : 
Her  motion  rules  there, — not  in  our  terrestrial. 

Heaven  sleeps,  wakes,  rests  in  the  divine  embrace. 
Now,  as  by  throughness  manifesting  here, 
Heaven  meets  the  Earth  to  weave  one  common  sphere. 

7 

See  now !  the  Judgment  moon  is  disappearing, 
Mid  clouds  of  eve  in  fading  colors  drest. 

The  atmosphere  we  meet  is  rising,  nearing 
The  sovereign  ether,  folding  on  to  rest. 

Now  lift  the  bosom,  fill  for  life's  increase  : 

We  shall  breathe  heaven  from  Judgment's  lips  of  peace. 


XXIX. 

1 

'Tis  written  in  a  prehistoric  book, 
Whereof  a  symbol  to  us  is  unsealed, 

"When  I  as  O-I  shall  through  o-i  look, 
World-I  as  O-I  shall  in  fji  sun-shield. 

I  trace  this  cryptograph  upon  the  page 

The  book  may  open  for  a  coming  age. 


C  O  N  V  E  &  S  A  T  I  O  N     IN    HEAVEN.  55 


2 

God  shapes  in  man  a  moving  vehicle, 

To  bear  Him  through  the  thought-ways  of  mankind. 
To-day  one  may  be  here,  a  miracle ; 

To-morrow  where  his  heavenly  life  is  shrined ; 
Now,  as  a  golden  child,  his  form  condense, 
Then  rise,  meridian  man,  to  visioned  sense. 

3 

Man  by  corporeal  receptivity 

May  hold  of  God  to  his  extreme  degree  ; 

Standing  so  wrought  in  formed  plasticity  ; 

Transposing  hence  in  fourths  from  thirds  to  be. 

The  organs  that  imprison  may  enthrone, 

When  God  adopts  the  plastic  form  His  own. 

4 

Man  may  from  fourths  evolve  to  thirds  again ; 

His  fourthness  thirded,  statue-like  and  firm ; 
To  the  last  sense  a  worlded  citizen, 

Complete  in  organs  to  the  final  term. 
See,  touch  and  handle  him,  this  is  the  same 
Who  seemed  to  perish,  but  who  overcame. 

5 

One  with  his  brethren,  simple  as  a  child, 

Humanly  genial  in  all  his  ways ; 
First  of  new  men,  therefore  as  primate  styled ; 

Holding  his  orbing  round  through  earthly  days  ; 
All  in  disguise,  yet  never  in  disguise  ; 
Time  for  him  opes,  to  shape  new  paradise. 


56  CONVERSATION     IN    HEAVEN. 


6 
For  the  new  vital  frame  is  of  the  mind, 

And  of  the  fourthness,  germed  to  fill  the  third. 
New  body,  that  its  outwardness  would  find, 

Is  fashioned  in  the  concept  of  the  Word. 
If  nature's  men  grew  forth  from  adam-eve, 
Of  Christus-Christa  we  our  forms  receive. 


Think  Christus  for  the  Sire  to  flesh  and  bone ; 

Think  that  we  are  re-wrought  through  Christa's  womb. 
Think  of  such  incarnation,  made  our  own 

To  resurrection  o'er  the  mortal  doom. 
Think  that  we,  fragile  creatures  of  the  sod, 
Take  in,  take  on  the  human  form  of  God. 

8 

Think  that  the  miracle  must  in  us  grow 

Through  mind  to  sense,  its  generating  field ; 

Yet  be  not  curious  to  probe  and  know ; 

Infants  know  not  whilst  in  the  womb  concealed. 

The  first  revealment,  fitly  to  be  styled, 

Is  when  man  finds  himself  a  little  child  : 

9 

A  wise  child,  such  as  holy  angels  are, 

Conscious  of  breathing  in  the  Mother-Sire  ; 

Conscious  of  touching,  inly  from  afar, 

To  God,  the  Fount  and  Fullness  of  desire. 

Formed  in  unself  to  feeling,  thought  and  aim  ; 

Living  alone  by  Christus-Christa's  flame. 


C ON VfiRSATIONlfr    HEAVEN.  5? 


10 

Into  such  state  of  blissful  innocence 
The  flood  of  transubstantiation  flows  ; 

Childlike  humility  its  evidence, 

And  perfect  faith  and  sweetness  its  repose. 

Then,  if  the  crystal  truths  within  us  gleam, 

They  are  as  gems  that  sparkle  in  the  stream. 

11 

In  God  made  flesh  so  let  our  flesh  respire, 
Till  transformation  rounds  its  perfect  play, 

And  Helios-Christus  through  arch-solar  fire 
Is  felt  in  Helia-Christa  day  by  day ; 

While  nature,  realized  as  seeming,  wears 

A  tremulous  live  glory  that  is  Theirs. 


XXX. 

1 

The  lungs  of  all  mere  egoistic  men 

Conspire  against  the  children  of  God's  breath 
The  organized  brute  passions  of  the  den 

Combine  to  slay  the  seed  of  Nazareth. 
Our  breathings  flow  more  free  in  hours  of  light, 
But  murder  and  disaster  haunt  the  night. 

2 

The  rise  is  that  of  Ixioii  on  the  wheel, 
The  round  as  the  descent  of  Ixion. 

Slowly  one  climbs,  by  gathering  mights  to  feel, 
Then  slowly  sinks  the  nightly  round  upon  ; 

Thence  forces  upward,  battling  all  the  way, 

Against  the  world-storm  that  awakes  with  day. 


58  CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN. 


3     . 
This  is  a  spectacle  in  occult  space 

Unknown,  unheard  in  history  before ; 
A  man  whose  motion  turns  against  the  race, 

Grasping  the  power,  from  earth  that  passed  of  yore. 
He  breasts  the  ruin,  hurled  the  sense  to  fill, 
From  time's  surcharged  heredities  of  ill. 

4 

I  saw  a  man,  a  Swedenborgian  chief; 

He  swung,  suspended  in  an  easy  chair, 
O'er  the  swoll'n  cataract  of  human  grief, 

Asleep,  clairvoyant,  seeking  to  declare  ; 
Then,  looking  down  to  the  abysmal  whirl, 
Espied  One  battling  where  the  surges  curl. 


A  spark  of  human  pity  lit  his  eyes ; 

He  cried,  "throw  bladders  to  him  lest  he  drown"; 
Then  shuddered  and  began  to  terrorize, 

Hiding  his  face  within  a  priestly  gown. 
One  spake,  "ascend  ;  see  you,  the  easy  chair 
Sinjcs  ;  'tis  suspended  by  a  single  hair." 

6 

Now  fears  overcame  him,  grew  to  a  collapse. 

Pity  was  given  ;  drawn  shoreward  he  arose ; 
Then,  on  the  sward,  exclaimed,  "perhaps,  perhaps, 

His  fiend  drew  that  man  downward  by  the  toes  ; 
Whilst  I,  his  angel,  putting  forth  a  thumb, 
Held  him  from  doom  by  equilibrium." 


CONVERSATION     I  N    a  E  A  V  E  N  .  59 

7 

A  bird  of  morning  nigh  awoke  to  crow  ; 

He  named  it  "  correspondence  ;  Peter's  cock  "  ; 
Nursed  tenderly  a  swoll'n  discolored  toe, 

Crying  "'tis  here  I  met  that  devil's  shock"  ; 
Then  sniffed  a  scroll  he  held,  for  perfumed  smells, 
To  "antidote  the  poison  of  the  hells." 

8 

But  one  like  Peter  made  to  overlean, 

And  gravely  answered,  "hear  the  morn  bird's  call. 
The  Man  who  struggles  is  the  Nazarene, 

Turning  His  wheel  'gainst  the  abysmal  wall. 
His  the  uplifting  force,  the  single  hair, 
That  drew  you  shoreward  in  the  easy  chair." 

9 

"Alas,  poor  Yorick!-  where  the  quips  and  cranks 

That  used  to  set  the  table  in  a  roar"? 
Pure  wit,  wise  humor,  on  the  blossomed  banks 

Of  paradise,  serve  Truth  for  evermore. 
The  humor  of  the  situation  tells 
'Gainst  the  false  learning  that  the  fact  misspells. 

10 

Humor  exists  in  God  : — be  humorous, 

Merry  and  sportive  ;  such  the  lesson,  meant 

For  all  who,  in  the  mortal  fret  and  fuss, 
Hold  heartily  to  serve  the  Word's  intent. 

Full  oft  full  Truth,  pursuing  for  the  best, 

Pierces  offence  by  arrow-points  of  jest. 


60  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

11 

The  Holy  City,  howsoever  spacious, 

John  the  divine  was  quickened  to  espy, 

Can  have  no  place  therein  for  the  mendacious, 
For  those  who  fashion  and  who  serve  a  lie. 

Pure  truth,  full  truth,  by  varied  colors  shown 

As  emerald,  ruby,  sapphire,  forms  the  stone. 

12 

"They  jest  at  scars  who  never  felt  a  wound" ; 

They  jest  at  wounds  who  can  efface  the  scar. 
That  man  who  holds  the  One-Twain  Word  his  ground 

Owns  healing  where  society  is  war. 
Plumes  the  white  dove  upon  the  hurricane, 
Breasting  such  wrath  its  home,  heaven's  heart,  to  gain. 

13 

He  beams  as  if  he  never  knew  a  care, 

Yet  cares  for  men  consume  his  days  and  nights. 

In  the  New  Life  we  learn  to  hold  and  bear, 

Vailing  a  breast  that  breeds  and  broods  delights. 

We  conquer  sorrows,  that  the  world  overwhelm, 

As  those  who  in  the  tempest  rule  the  helm. 


XXXI. 

1 

The  eyes  of  man  are  in  his  purposes ; 

In  fourthriess  we  behold  as  we  should  see. 
Saved  from  the  optical  uncertainties, 

We  move  at  ease,  from  accident  full  free. 
Hence  holy  scripture  of  the  just  averred, 
That  "all  his  steps  are  ordered  of  the  Lord/' 


CONVERSATION    J  N    H  E  A  V  E  N  .  61 


The  roving  habitudes  no  more  exist. 

"Just  men  made  perfect"  are  as  doves  in  flight ; 
They  for  the  purpose  of  the  way  persist, 

Since  God  is  ever  made  the  point  of  sight. 
In  seeing  God  the  visual  sense  discerns 
The  pathway  of  the  round  and  the  returns. 


Some  query,  "did  you  meet  with  so  and  so, 
Outward  or  inward  ?  tell  us  of  their  news." 

We  hint  not  what  is  seen,  nor  where  we  go, 
Yet  never  by  a  churlishness  refuse. 

On  sight  and  speech  the  sacred  shadows  fall, 

Save  for  a  purpose  that  holds  God  in  all. 

4 

Sufficient  for  the  day  the  toil  thereof ; 

Sufficient  for  the  service  is  the  dav. 

• 

The  "tangled  net"  of  seemings  "blindly  wove'' 

We  ravel  not,  save  as  it  bars  the  way. 
In  the  cool  waters  where  we  make  our  stand 
The  flowing  Truth  holds  wells  on  either  hand. 


Pure  wisdom's  way  is  not  to  right  nor  left, 

Seeing  no  cause  to  vary  or  digress. 
Straightforward !  'tis  for  this  the  rocks  are  cleft ; 

Thus  far,  no  farther  but  as  ends  confess. 
Clear  Truth,  that  couches  the  dense,  clouded  sight, 
Makes  mind  its  eye-ball  for  the  living  light. 


62  CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 

6 

To  serve  the  great  as  if  it  were  the  small ; 

To  serve  the  small  as  if  it  were  the  great ; 
To  be  in  each  the  servant  of  the  all ; 

To  move  as  lightning,  or  to  stand  and  wait ; 
To  hold  each  point  just  as  the  ends  require, — 
Such  grows  to  habit  from  the  fixed  desire. 


The  martinet,  in  stark  stiff  rigidness, 
Is  custom's  manikin,  a  blind  machine; 

The  pious  ego,  numbed  to  frigidness, 

But  a  dry  shell,  masked  in  a  wintry  screen  ; 

'Tis  pageant,  pretence,  mimicry,  so  thin 

That  all  may  see  who  glance  beneath  the  skin. 


Nature  through  nctionists  great  fiction  spins  ; 

Nature  through  ego  masses  egoism  ; 
From  her  dark  cabinet  the  " psyche"  wins 

Ghostly  illusions  for  his  magic  prism. 
Fool-time  for  senile  age  must  last  avow, 

Sign  of  the  Coming,  it  is  fool-time  now. 

i 

9 

Earth  bows  in  worship  to  the  "  sacred  ass/' 
The  donkey  ego,  land  to  land  that  brays ; 

Sees  its  own  image  through  illusion  pass, 

And  makes  the  world  its  temple  of  self-praise. 

Old  Superstition  felt  to  heavens  and  hells  ; 

New  Fantasy  in  spectral  vacuum  dwells. 


CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN.  63 


10 

But  so  the  end  is  vacancy ;  the  void 

Rounds,  doubles  to  without  from  the  within 

Ego  in  crass,  crude  selfness,  self-deployed, 
Shows  as  mere  surface,  proud  inflated  skin. 

Hence  the  result,  moving  through  ages  on, 

Is  silence,  vanishing,  oblivion. 


XXXII. 

1 

Sweet  is  the  Loneliness  with  God  that  dwells, 
And,  in  a  calm  seclusion,  gently  keeps 

Its  faith,  amid  the  partings  and  farewells, 

When  hope  goes  clad  in  autumn's  robe  and  heaps 

The  graves  that  hold  the  hours  with  precious  dust. 

God  is  the  tabernacle  of  our  trust. 

2 

Sweet  are  the  hours,  when  Resignation  bows 
Beside  us  with  the  God-book  on  her  knee  ; 

Then  folds  within  our  being,  so  to  house 
Our  sadness  in  her  sweet  sobriety! 

Resigned  to  every  change  that  may  befall, 

'Tis  this  extracts  the  sting,  unweaves  the  pall. 


"  Lover  and  friend  Thou  hast  put  far  from  me  ; 

I  am  acquaint  with  darkness  "  of  life's  woe. 
I  enter  the  last  time's  vacuity  ; 

Still,  though  in  vacancy,  content  to  go. 
Am  I  in  shadow,  chill,  funereal,  vast? 
"God  makes  the  dark  His  covering,"  at  the  last, 


64  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

4 

The  gold  sand,  sifting  from  time's  crystal  glass, 
Spins  into  shadow,  caught  in  death's  dim  hand. 

Vision  is  lost  as  if  it  never  was  ; 

"In  the  sixth  hour  a  darkness  filled  the  land, 

And  many  saints  who  slept  in  dust  arose  "  : 

This  may  befall  us  in  the  coining  close. 


"lie  put  away  the  hyssop  and  the  gall," 
Holding  full  consciousness.  I  will  abide 

The  hour,  nor  shall  the  opiates  enthrall, 
Though  lethe  mingle  with  the  airy  tide. 

Though  God  forsake  in  seeming,  as  He  will 

In  the  time's  ending,  hold,  thou  heart,  be  still. 

6 

That  "  God  forsake,"  I  know  its  meaning  soon  ; 

'Tis  but  the  change  of  attitude  :  toils  change  ; 
God  changes  with  them,  as  the  waning  moon 

Glides  through  eclipse,  o'er  orient  heights  to  range, 
Till  her  new  crescent  greets  the  morning  star ; 
Reborn  through  vanishing  to  avatar. 

XXXIII. 

1 

Where  are  the  scriptures  and  the  hierographs  ? 

They  show  but  as  dim  tracings  on  the  wall 
Of  failing  consciousness  ;  unreason  laughs, 

To  see  the  God-prints  fading,  one  and  all. 
The  lights,  that  served  for  time's  historic  way, 
Melt  to  a  vaporous  haze  in  mild  decay. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  65 


The  ego's  mind,  grasping  to  things  unseen, 
Projects  its  own  illusion  o'er  the  marge, 

Reflects  its  thought  upon  the  magic  screen, 

Then  thinks  a  "  spirit-world,"  its  own  discharge  ; 

Its  natural  law  but  doubled  to  a  scheme 

Of  reflex  time,  a  dream  led  through  a  dream. 


Ego  is  in  the  flurry  ere  it  drown, 

Gasping  up  bubbles  through  the  watery  glare 
The  flame  of  its  intelligence  dies  down 

To  broken  hues  of  glamour  in  the  air. 
Ego  in  fantasy  its  content  yields, 
As  dying  Falstaff  "  babbled  of  green  fields." 

4 

Ego  dies  as  the  fool  dies,  as  the  brute  ; 

Having  no  Word-sense,  so  it  hath  110  care  ; . 
'Tis  dissolution  of  the  dissolute, 

The  snarer  dazed  in  pitfalls  of  the  snare. 
The  spectacle  expires  to  close  the  play ; 
The  breath  of  Judgment  blows  its  cloud  away. 


By  night  the  living  ethers  are  astir 

To  lead  a  languorous,  dreamy,  easeful  swoon, 
That  ego  feels  in  its  self-sepulcher, 

Greeting  the  flowings  for  a  breathing  boon  : 
They  touch  the  lips  for  sweetness,  they  exhale 
As  odors  of  the  vintage  ere  they  fail. 

5 


66  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


6 

The  goblet  of  the  air,  for  such  libations, 
Fills  with  the  wine  of  God,  ethereal  wine  ; 

But  ego,  led  to  doom  by  delirations, 
Quaffs  it,  in  heart  denying  the  divine. 

'Tis  bread  in  wine,  transubstantiated  clean, 

Substance  in  essence  of  the  Nazarene. 


So  Judgment  lifts  the  urn  for  sacrament. 

See  how  Her  cup  has  grown,  the  holy  grail ; 
It  holds  the  interstellar  floods  unspent ; 

Ethereal  seas  flow  from  it  to  prevail. 
"  Henceforth  with  you  I  taste  no  cup  again, 
Until  the  Father's  kingdom  comes  to  men." 

XXXIV. 

1 

The  sons  of  craft,  of  usury  and  trade, 

In  the  great  city  hold  their  splendid  feast. 

'Tis  here  my  silent  solitude  is  made, 
A  man  unnoted,  or  esteemed  the  least ; 

Yet  here,  while  millions  toil  in  sorrows  clad, 

I  find  the  grail,  serve  as  Sir  Galahad. 

2 

The  Latin  Church  is  pageant,  symbolism, 
Yet  weaves  a  truth  as  Hellas  did  of  yore. 

The  fourth  dimension  shines  to  touch  its  prism; 
Christ,  to  fill  all  things,  may  its  worths  restore. 

In  hours  when  first  his  papacy  began, 

I  met  kind  Leo  in  the  Vatican. 


CONVERS  ATION    IN    HEAVEN.  67 

3 

One,  as  a  fellow  servant,  touched  his  bosom, 

That  oped  a  little  for  such  sacred  spell ; 
Then  the  White  Lady  from  Her  rod  in  blossom 

Shed  incense  there,  for  lo !  he  loves  Her  well ; 
Loves  Her  in  symbol  as  celestial  queen, 
Feeling,  not  knowing,  what  the  symbols  mean. 

4 

Thence  in  his  secret  crypt  he  knelt  adoring, 

Awed  as  by  presence  of  the  Paraclete, 
And  rose,  new  vigors  through  his  bosom  pouring, 

Serving  in  thought  at  the  White  Lady's  feet. 
The  poor,  Her  poor,  he  loves  them  as  his  own; 
Loves  them  in  spirit,  loves  to  flesh  and  bone. 

5 

He  grasps  a  socialism  made  divine, 

Grandly  though  in  a  mantle  of  disguise  ; 

He  would  undo  the  pact  of  Constantine, 

And  shape  Christ's  church  for  people's  paradise. 

He  would  have  prelate,  king  and  kaiser  all 

Servants  of  God,  the  great  to  lift  the  small. 

6 

He  seeks  to  re-instate  the  latin  mythe, 

As  Julian. to  save  Olympus  fought ; 
Would  raise  from  dust  Democracy,  alive 

As  Lazarus,  with  ma.nly  vigor  fraught, 
To  serve  with  Christ  at  table,  at  His  feet, 
Feeding  the  brethren  Avhere  they  sit  at  meat. 


68  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


"Let  there  be  justice  done  though  heaven  should  fall" :  * 
Let  there  be  judgment  won  and  earth  must  rise. 

Judgment,  impartial,  generous,  will  disthrall 
Saints  from  their  fantasy  :  God's  hand  supplies 

The  magnet  that  shall  draw  from  land  to  land, 

Till  all  are  knit  in  one  fraternal  band. 

8 

Hold  Leo  for  an  object  lesson  thus, 

To  show  the  old  in  turn  toward  the  new. 

We  are  "God's  heretics";  he  kin  to  us, 
Beloved  of  Adonai  and  the  few 

Whose  lips  are  pressed  to  the  White  Lady's  vail, 

Known  as  the  "Brethren  of  the  Holv  Grail." 


XXXV. 

1 

The  interstellar  ether  rounds  in  systems 
Of  realms,  capacious,  exquisite,  twain-bne, 

Held  in  the  Solar  Word's  divine  persistence, 
The  circumsphere  orbed  on  from  sun  to  sun. 

'Tis  fourth  dimensional,  outwound,  in  wound, 

To  shrine  the  belted  planets  in  its  round. 


One  God,  one  life,  one  law,  one  ordered  scheme 
Divinely  natural,  its  all  is  shown  ; 

Nature  of  nature,  positive,  supreme, 
Infmiverse  in  universe  ;  'tis  known 

As  "Theosocia,"  in  godness  shrined  ; 

Home  of  God-Man  in  universed  mankind. 


CONVERSATION  IN  k E A v E & .  69 


3 

The  Infinite,  in  timeless  revolution, 

Is  there  for  times  and  seasons,  orbs  and  spheres. 
From  inmost  outmosted  for  evolution, 

In  all,  through  all,  the  God  One-Twain  endears, 
Inspires,  illuminates,  intones,  imparts  ;— - 
MAN,  motived  into  all  through  hearts  in  hearts. 

4 

Conceive  of  this  by  a  simplicity, 

A  truth-point  led  into  the  reasoning  sense. 

In  fourth  dimensioned  wisdom  rise  and  see ; 
Put  on  a  thoughtness  from  Omniscience  ; 

Exalt  the  Word-breath  till  it  rules  the  frame, 

Then  feel  the  universal  by  its  flame. 


So,  as  the  Word-ways  open  in  the  brain, 

This  realm  a  fourth  dimensioned  space  is  found. 

If  the  ways  open  not,  'tis  the  profane 
In  ego  and  its  lusts  that  bars  the  round. 

To-day  the  men  of  Jupiter  and  Mars 

Might  touch  the  sense,  but  that  earth's  ill  debars. 


6 

When  open  earth  shall  touch  the  open  sky 
And  open  sky  with  open  earth  achord, 

The  lustful  ego  in  its  wrath  must  die ; 

As  failed  the  tempest  when  it  met  the  Lord, 

And  the  coiled  whirlpools  folded  to  a  glee, 

And  thefe  was  breathful  rest  on  Galilee. 


70  C  O  N  V  E  R  S  A  T  I  O  N    I  N    H  E  A  V  E  N  . 

XXXVI. 

1 

Learned  ego,  "  psychic,"  thinks  o'er  earth's  frontiers, 

To  fancy  there  a  reflex  natural  law. 
The  "medium"  spiritist  reveals  the  "spheres"  ; 

The  same  old  world,  blown  by  a  windy  flaw, 
Through  death's  dim  outlet,  to  a  second  state  ; 
A  "summer  land"  where  pastimes  never  sate. 

2 

Tis  natured  thought,  in  third  dimension  yet ; 

The  funeral  banquet  hashed  for  birth-time  feast ; 
A  spectral  show  in  lavish  splendor  set, 

To  a  perpetual  festival  released  ; 
The  tree  of  old  self-wisdom  fruited  rife, 
The  coiled  snake  hissing,  "this  the  tree  of  life." 


Ego  thinks  ether  as  fluidity  ; 

A  superserviceable  fund  of  force  ; 
A  fierier  flowing  of  the  nature  sea, 

Waiting  his  summons  for  the  onwrard  course  ; 
To  waft  his  chariots  through  lucid  air ; 
To  glorify  the  feast  and  charm  him  there ; 

4 

Perchance  to  lengthen  on  the  span  of  years  ; 

To  renovate  for  age  its  dry  remains  ; 
Arrest  the  planet's  crisis  that  anears  ; 

Lead  fresh  fertility  o'er  wasted  plains ; 
Enarm  the  sciences  with  magic  might, 
And  spin  the  planet  in  his  self-delight. 


CONVERSATION    IX    HE  A  YEN. 


5 

Ego  has  reaped  the  globe  ;  its  barns  are  full, 
And  now  he  whets  the  scythe  for  larger  swing  ; 

Has  roused  the  doom-storm,  and  its  wrath  wrould  lull ; 
For  safeties  thus  the  "  second  sphere  "  would  bring. 

Ego,  like  conquering  Alexander,  sighs 

New  worlds  to  ravish  ;  in  his  dream  he  dies. 

6 

I  saw  a  ghost ;  he  lived  for  self-applause 
And  in  a  dream  of  battles  bowed  the  head. 

Bound  by  the  dread,  inexorable  laws, 

He  haunts  the  plains  that  reddened  for  his  tread. 

As  the  "  red  specter, "  dripping  through  and  through 

With  sanguine  stains,  he  wails  o'er  Waterloo. 


He  was  a  psychic  too  ;  a  star,  "  his  star," 

Fixed  in  imagination,  lured  him  on. 
Europe  was  chained  to  his  triumphal  car, 

And  the'  wild  war-fiends  crowned  Napoleon. 
There's  an  astrology  that  coils  in  fate  ; 
A  star  that  falls,  a  mill-stone  for  its  weight, 

8 

And  by  its  fall  it  crushes.  Howsoe'er 

The  man  who  serves  the  star  may  rule  and  rise, 

His  feet  are  fast  within  the  evil  snare ; 

He  haunts  the  wrecks  of  his  dead  empirics ; 

For  all  the  wrong  he  wrought,  the  blood  he  spilt, 

Flames  wreathe,  his  heart  shows  but  the  dagger's  hilt. 


72  CONVERSATION    JN     HEAVEN. 


XXXVII. 

1 

We  who  are  of  the  Nazarene  creation, 

Mortals  conserved  to  immortality, 
Own  the  Divine  in  natural  operation, 

So  daily  quickening  as  we  daily  die. 
We  touch  men  outly  by  the  four-fold  feel ; 
Truth  dwells  in  us,  in  effort  to  reveal. 

2 

Nature's  revealment,  by  its  lines,  is  writ 

In  the  three  kingdoms  that  from  time  began. 

The  Nazarene  revealment,  subtly  fit, 
Thence  re-creates  creation  into  man. 

Word-man  in  man,  the  God  Twain-One  lifts  free  ; 

Brahm  in  the  lotos  of  the  human  sea. 

3 

Judgment,  when  full,  is  opening,  is  emergence. 

The  Word  that  grew  in  flesh,  the  term  fulfilled, 
Lifts,  by  an  infinite  proceeding  urgence, 

The  twain-one  life,  where  nature  pierced  and  killed. 
Christ,  the  God  Bridegroom,  to  the  nuptials  glides, 
And  all  his  own  arise  as  bridegroom-brides. 

4 

See  how  the  symbols  open  into  fact ; 

How  the  obscure  shines  in  the  God-light  clear. 
Man,  scriptured  in  the  Nazareniaii  pact, 

Finds  the  full  re-creation  fashioned  here. 
All  things  are  wrought  as  prophecies  foretold  ; 
The  Woman's  kingdom  breasts,  mankind  to  fold. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEfr.  73 


Christ  leads  forth  Christa,  whom  mankind's  offense 

Rejected,  held  from  manifested  sight. 
Folding  the  Woman's  Word  from  sense  to  sense, 

She  orbs  humanity  in  Love's  delight. 
Hence  avatar  ;  the  Nazarenian  reign  ; 
One-twain  humanity  in  God  One-Twain. 

6 

Old  scripture  grew  from  fourth,  but  vailed  in  third, 
Vailed  in  the  partial;  therefore  "known  in  part." 

New  scripture,  flowing  in  the  Bridal  Word, 

Leads  the  completeness  on  through  heart  to  heart. 

Henceforth  no  possibility  of  fall ; 

The  heart-united  race  ;  God  all  in  all. 


See  how  the  Infinite  is  leading  through 
The  finites,  touching  even  to  a  verse  ; 

Sprinkling,  by  fervid  airs,  Life's  honey-dew, 
For  resurrection  o'er  the  planet's  hearse. 

Let  us  abide  in  hope,  in  God  full  strong, 

Thrilled  by  glad  preludes  of  the  Lord's  new  song. 


XXXVIII. 


1 
The  attitude  of  time  is  drifting,  drifting. 

Now  Peoples  in  calamity  array, 
While  secretly  moves  on  the  final  sifting. 

Souls  feel  the  treacherous  ooze  through  nature's  play 
Stupidity  encroaches  on  the  sense  : 
Oppressive  ego  turns  on  the  defense. 


74  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEJN. 


2 

Where,  heretofore,  we  dwelt  in  worldly  angers, 
Pressing  as  combatants  on  hostile  spears, 

To-day  we  toil  grasped  in  a  belt  of  languors ; 
Hot  were  the  enmities,  now  chill  the  fears. 

Men,  while  they  crowd  each  other  to  the  wall, 

Quiver  as  forest  leaves  about  to  fall. 

3 

The  airs  are  dense  with  palpable  oppression  ; 

A  yellow  vapor  clouds  the  jaundiced  skin  : 
Life  ebbs  away  in  languid,  slow  repression ; 

Death  too  is  languid,  death  and  pain  and  sin. 
The  winding  streams  of  thought  and  feeling,  slow, 
Wearied  and  darkling,  on  to  Lethe  flow. 

4 

The  /est  of  vice  is  palling  in  the  vicious  ; 

Ego,  the  snake,  embeds  his  coil  in  slime  ; 
The  impiously  gay,  the  meretricious, 

Feel  in  self-motion  that  is  losing  rhyme. 
Judgment,  exacting  to  the  final  coin, 
Confronts  mankind  to  penetrate  the  groin. 


Of  old,  men  thought  to  sex  by  upward  lift, 
But  now  approach  it  by  the  downward  tread. 

God-life  and  sex-life  are  in  fatal  rift ; 

Chasm  twixt  heaven  and  nature's  procreant  bed 

Here  the  last  profanation  of  the  race ; 

Here  the  coiled  dragon  in  Life's  holy  place. 


CONVERSATION     IN    HEAVEN.  75 


6 

Here  'tis  that  Judgment  touches  to  unseal. 

The  Awful  Woman  who  is  rohed  in  doom 
Pierces  the  sexual  sense,  the  feel  of  feel, 

To  quench  the  fever-blaze  that  fed  the  tomb. 
'Tis  here  at  last  that  Judgment  lifts  Her  vail. — 
Hail,  Helia-Christa  !  so  shalt  Thou  prevail. 

XXXIX. 

1 

Men  strive  to  ward  off  doom  by  devious  arts ; 

To  baffle  God  the  Twain-One  by  a  jest ; 
Blaspheme  the  gospel  of  the  counterparts ; 

War  by  the  dragon's  naming  coil  and  crest. 
Sex-falsehood  in  sex-evil,  mightening  still, 
Defies  the  Judgment,  dares  the  Woman's  will. 

2 

In  the  dim  night  I  crossed  the  sex  frontiers, 
Led  in  the  motion  of  the  Nazarene. 

Ego  has  champions,  ghostly  cavaliers, 
Myriads  in  one,  the  common  libertine ; 

Massed  to  a  common  purpose,  common  lust, 

For  war  against  the  Woman's  Word  they  thrust. 

3 

God-sex  or  ego-sex,  such  is  the  issue ; 

All  causes  merge  into  the  final  cause. 
Ego  would  penetrate  the  gauzy  tissue 

Of  the  new  flesh  :  the  sexual  vortex  draws 
Its  myriads  to  weave  a  common  whirl. — 
Judgment  now  enters  as  a  Fair  Young  Girl. 


76  CONVERSATION  IN  it 


4 

The  Protestant  denies  the  Word  in  sex  ; 

The  grim  agnostic  follows  in  his  train  ; 
The  Romanist  strews  time  with  marriage  wrecks, 

Taking  the  nuptial  name  of  God  in  vain. 
Creedless  meiirapes  and  zealots  of  the  creed 
Are  one,  to  serve  sex-ego  in  its  need. 

5 

All  sexual  crimes  are  one  by  last  resort, 
And  with  all  ills  to  common  ends  unite. 

All  criminals  hive  in  the  common  "  scort," 

And  by  its  lust-fire  nerve  their  veiiomed  might, 

Here  the  dehumanizing  powers  agree, 

Chaining  mankind  in  common  anarchy. 

6 

But  Judgment  enters  anarchy.  How  still, 
Sweet  and  yet  awful  is  that  Woman  Grace  ! 

The  chalice  that  She  lifts,  no  drop  to  spill, 
Holds  life  or  lethe,  led  to  all  the  race. 

Her  feet  are  on  the  whirlpool,  and  the  rain 

Of  odors  from  Her  bosom  falls  amain. 


XL. 


1 

Explore  Chicago's  Exposition  grounds. 

For  this  the  lavish  millions  were  bespent. 
A  pallid  ring  the  multitude  surrounds, 

On  spoilage,  luxury  or  learning  bent. 
The  vapor-cloud  of  Judgment,  white  and  thin, 
Weaves  o'er  the  hair,  it  gathers  on  the  skin. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  77 


The  chirping  crickets  fail  before  the  frost, 
Whose  pallor  in  the  air  weaves  pestilence  ; 

So  the  sex-insects,  myriads,  are  crost 

Through  all  their  pastime  by  a  chilling  sense, 

Which,  to  the  lusts  of  life  within  their  "hold, 

Instills  the  feeling,  that  the  last  is  told  ; 

3 

That  autumn  is  upon  them  with  its  blasts. 

But  that  eyes  close  in  glamour,  they  would  spy 
Shade  from  the  rising  World-Soul,  that  o'ercasts 

The  proud  pavilions  of  their  harlotry. 
Mark  there  the  shadow  of  the  Fateful  Hand, 
Fingers  that  ply  the  sex-sense  to  disband. 

4 

Thousands  on  thousands,  fairy  violins, 

Lutes,  trumpets,  drums !  the  fairy  song-horns  blow. 
Now  fairyland  is  loosed  ;  the  music  spins 

Into  a  blithe  refrain,  "home,  home  we  go.'' 
The  breast  of  the  World  Mother  has  set  free 
The  Word-seed  of  the  new  humanitv. 


And  quiet  folk  of  Mars  and  Jupiter, 

From  space-ways  of  the  sun's  etheric  flow, 

Charmed  by  the  melody  to  follow  Her, 
Vibrate  into  the  World-Soul,  winding  so 

A  motion  that  is  populous  with  lives ; 

Fairies  that  swarm  as  bees  to  summer  hives. 


78  CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 

6 

Be  not  thou  by  the  murmurous  motion  vexed 
If  it  should  wind  fay-bugles  in  thine  ear. 

"  Motion  that  breeds  to  song,"  so  saith  the  text 
In  Wisdom's  book,  "  bespeaks  the  Coming  near.' 

'Tis  from  the  Small  in  germ  great  acts  proceed ; 

God's  kingdom  grows  from  viewless  human  seed. 


The  bubble  city,  with  its  bubble  show, 

Whirls  in  a  common  panic  of  mistrust. 
Guests  on  the  golden  mendicants  bestow, 

Then  turn  aside  in  sorrow  or  disgust. 
Sex-lust  in  lust  of  coin  the  bubble  bred ; 
The  World-Soul  through  it  hath  her  shadow  led. 

8 

Advance  again,  but  now  to  Notre  Dame, 
The  proud  cathedral  lofty  o'er  the  Seine ; 

See  o'er  it  streaming  heaven's  broad  oriflamme, 
Starred  all  with  golden  lilies  :  Judgment  came, 

And  flung  Her  ensign  free  upon  the  breeze, 

O'er  the  gorged  city  of  time's  harlotries. 

9 

Blood  spatters  the  gay  boulevards ;  through  the  stone 
Clear  eyes  may  still  glimpse  where  the  Commune  bled. 

Judgment  stood  silent,  but  She  heard  the  groan 
Of  the  chained  People,  She  drew  home  their  dead. 

Yet  lo!  Her  dead,  all,  all  whose  lives  were  spent 

To  pave  Her  pathway,  serve  the  last  event. 


CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 


XLI. 
1 

Men  catch  at  straws  to  battle  with  the  storm, 
To  shield  them  from  flame-tempest  and  white  rain 

Their  futile  schemes  for  corporate  reform 
Are  wattled  huts  against  the  hurricane  : 

They  brood  o'er  serpents'  eggs,  within  the  bed 

Of  the  slain  dove,  to  hatch  young  snakes  instead. 

2    i 

The  bankrupt  planet  swings  to  liquidation : 
Let  us  praise  God  for  penetrative  light. 

Ego  has  held  and  ruled  the  situation, 

Claiming  inversive  progress  for  its  right ; 

Doing  its  worst,  it  hastes  to  coin  a  worse. 

The  plague-spot  festers  jn  Life's  universe. 

3 

I  saw  by  night  a  worn  old  ruin  fall, 

Built  by  inversive  morals  long  ago. 
The  tremors  of  the  Judgment  touch  the  ball 

Of  Ego's  sex-force  ;  there's  a  sudden  throe 
Of  human  earthquake  in  the  quivering  soil, 
As  if  the  world-snake  rounded  to  uncoil. 

4 

But,  moving  on,  there  was  a  stranger  sight ; 

A  lire  like  blazing  oil  before  me  ran ; 
Fierce  winds,  that  kindled  ego  to  his  might, 

Took  fire  to  penetrate  his  organcd  van. 
In  every  spark  thereof  a  fairy  drew 
His  bow,  to  wing  a  piercing  arroAV  through. 


80  CONVERSATION    IN     HEAT  E  N  . 

5 

Woman  is  ego's  point  of  last  objective  ; 

Tis  by  the  ego  that  the  matron  breeds. 
Woman,  subservient,  is  yet  protective, 

Shielding  the  man-snake,  on  her  life  who  feeds. 
Woman,  her  sense  of  sense  in  common  rape, 
Wings  the  destroyer  for  the  last  escape. 

6 

A  fairy  sped  into  my  nerve  of  vision, 

Naked,  rose-crowned,  as  cupid  with  his  bow  : 

Never  did  paradise  or  fields  elysian 
A  lovelier  image  to  the  sight  bestow. 

His  arrow  sang  true  to  a  blessed  aim, 

A  warbling  melody  its  flight  became. 


Judgment  begins  in  littles ;  first  a  point, 

Small  as  such  fire-point,  in  the  world's  huge  sphere  ; 
Yet  it  has  power  to  loosen,  joint  by  joint, 

Man's  bulky  frame,  till  ego  disappear. 
Such  Word-motes,  arrowing  the  polar  ice, 
Dissolve  time's  glacier ;  then  blooms  paradise. 


XLII. 

1 
Judgment  grows  sensible,  to  touch  the  sense, 

For  sense  of  coming  throughness,  all  Her  own  : 
Herein  is  met  the  dawn  of  evidence. 

By  hues  in  hues,  to  mortals  all  unknown, 
Sunrise  and  sunset  through  each  other  burn, 
With  colors  from  the  God-rise  in  return. 


C  0  N  V  E  R  S  A  T I  O  X    I N    H  E  A  V  E  N  .  81 


The  permanent  invades  the  transitory, 

With  lusters  that  from  love  the  tints  distrain  ; 

A  glory  and  a  glory  and  a  glory, 

Bride,  Bridegroom  and  the  beauteous  nuptial  train ! 

When  Judgment  lifts  to  God-light  on  the  brow, 

Aurora  coronalis  will  avow. 


3 

Sit  with  me  in  this  cloistered  nook  awhile. 

Now  listen ;  'tis  the  Light  that  in  thee  sings. 
There  is  an  archway  to  this  hallowed  pile, 

Fronting  full  east,  named  as  "the  door  of  kings." 
'Tis  to  receive  the  magi  of  the  star, 
Wise  men  who  come  to  hail  the  Avatar. 

4 

In  such  tremendous  confluence  of  fate, 

Wings  of  pure  flame,  from  shoulders  and  from  brow, 
Lift  tremulous ;  the  body  slips  from  weight. 

Into  the  weightless  ether ;  while  the  prow 
Of  the  first  music-breathing  argosy 
Slides  into  sight  from  heaven's  ethereal  si. 


From  weight  to  weightlessness  ! — the  skylark  fails, 
And  the  empyrean  eagle  droops  his  wings. 

Judgment,  by  weightlessness,  o'er  weight  prevails ; 
This  is  a  gift  that  full  deliverance  brings. 

Her  own,  who  serve  the  Word's  imperial  gate, 

"Run  and  not  weary,  walk  and  never  faint." 
6 


82  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

6 

Yet,  ere  the  new  born  east  begins  to  dapple, 

The  chanting  stars  shall  hail  Love's  prime  reborn ; 

And  blithe  fay  minstrels,  in  their  bosom  chapel, 
Wake  orisons  for  God -rise  in  the  morn  ; 

Then  all  the  nerves  at-one  as  lyre-strings  play, 

Attuning  so  for  God-time  in  the  day. 


Soft,  soft !  bid  Promise  fold  glad  wings  in  prayer, 
"Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done  below." 

Change  must  avow  by  weightlessness  from  care  ; 
The  bosom  blest  by  lips  from  Lilimo'. 

Weights  of  the  spirit,  mind  and  sense  release 

To  final  weightlessness:  the  End  is  peace. 

<S 

Judgment  is  moving  by  the  flowing  tide  : 
The  Beauty  of  the  Morning  meets  the  lands. 

Suffered  not  yet  to  touch  Her  balmy  side, 

We  feel  the  foot-rise  through  the  wavering  sands. 

Lo !  She  will  lift  Her  naiads  on  the  crest 

Of  billowed  life,  brides  for  the  marriage  drest. 

9 

Poised  in  the  conflux  of  twain  gravitations, 
Man  of  full  fourthness,  holding  in  his  whirl, 

Rules  for  his  round  by  pure  equilibrations, 
Infurling  here,  there  shaping  to  unfurl. 

Set  in  the  "door  of  kings,"  to  serve  he  stands, 

The  flames  his  chariot  and  the  wrinds  his  wands, 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  S3 


XLIII. 


1 

The  troubles  of  the  time  do  not  abate. 

Now  I  am  troubled  in  them,  for  the  few, 
The  burden-bearers  of  such  sad  estate, 

Who  hold  in  all  the  failures  to  pursue. 
I  saw  a  stork  beside  a  marshy  stream, 
Where  he  had  found  his  food  and  fed  his  dream. 


One  spake,  "this  is  a  man  of  many  parts, 
Who  fed  on  human  instincts,  kindly  good, 

And  swallowed  wealth  by  socialistic  arts, 
And  for  a  leader  of  the  people  stood  ; 

But  now  he  droops  to  failure,  harping  still, 

1  My  frogs  conspire  to  outrage  me,  or  kill ; 

3 

"  'And  if  I  am  destroyed,  the  marsh  will  dry, 
And  the  poor  creatures,  whom  I  sought  to  save, 

But  who  deny  me,  perish  utterly.'  " — 

Then  rose  the  frog-chant,  "hark  the  knave,  the  knave! 

Years  we  have  spent  our  flesh  to  fill  his  maw. 

Let  us  invoke  the  gunners  and  their  law.  " 

4 

"Glad  tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  this  land," 

Spake,  in  his  sharp,  quick  voice,  a  shining  fay  ; 

"Stork,  stork!  deny  the  greed-itch,  set  your  grand 
Broad  wings,  release  the  frogs  and  sail  away." — 

If  one  would  serve  the  people  in  its  toil, 

He  must  conserve  and  not  consume  the  spoil, 


84  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


No  man  who  claims,  but  will  not  lift  the  load, 
May  hope  deliverance  in  the  coming  life. 

The  chief,  upon  the  " public  ass"  who  rode, 
Is  overthrown  when  judgment  hours  are  rife. 

We  toil  through  cares  to  reach  the  end  of  cares  ; 

He  'scapes  the  burden  who  the  burden  shares. 


The  stork  bowed  to  me,  thus  to  pierce  my  hand 
For  blood,  but  no  more  drops  of  blood  he  drew ; 

Then  soared  forlornly  to  a  far-off  land, 

Croaking,  "  alas,  friends  fail  me,  life  adieu ! 

Through  toilsome  years  I  strove  that  frogs  might  thrive  ; 

Now  none  will  aid  to  keep  my  flesh  alive." 


Blame  not  the  stork,  for  that  he  is  a  feeder ; 

Joy  that  he  holds  kind  thoughts  for  such  as  feed. 
His  error  is  to  drape  himself  as  leader, 

With  promised  food-gifts  to  the  frogs  in  need. 
Frog  marsh  in  "Labor  Unions"  oft  is  shown, 
And  "walking  delegates"  for  storks  are  known. 


Reforms  decease  for  want  of  true  reformers, 
Captains  and  Commissaries,  rank  and  file. 

The  blatant  demagogues,  the  scolds  and  scorners, 
By  lack  of  honor  fail,  not  lack  of -guile. 

No  dwellers  in  the  marsh  transform  till  when 

Ego  has  flown  ;  marsh  becomes  corn-field  then. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  85 


XLIV. 


1 

I  saw  a  Poet  who  had  drawn  a  skin 

Of  egoized  remembrance  to  a  trail, 
And  through  death's  portals,  but  inclosed  therein, 

Projected,  shone  as  comet  with  its  tail. 
Stripping  the  fringe,  whilst  pangs  rose  to  pursue, 
The  trail,  like  to  his  ghost,  to  face  him  grew. 


Then  fears  overtook  him,  for  himself  he  saw, 
Man  who  had  lost  his  shadow,  and  the  ghost, 

That  was  his  semblance,  smote  him  with  an  awe, 
Being  the  self  that  he  had  known  the  most. 

Hence  he  beheld  his  egoized  career 

Packed  in  a  man-skin,  thus  to  re-appear. 


But  as  the  wraith  removed,  new  voice  was  his  ; 

Yet  'twas  a  voice  that  minimized,  made  small 
As  are  the  notes  of  atomies  that  whiz, 

Or  droning  insects  on  the  summer  wall. 
The  strident  voice  of  natured  time  had  flown ; 
Gone  with  the  shade  the  voice  that  it  had  known. 


Afterward  hung  the  shadow  on  a  limb 

Of  that  which  seemed  a  tree's  o'erhanging  bough, 
As  linen  from  the  laundry  ;  only  dim, 

Blanched  memories  of  ego  showing  now. 
He  to  regain  the  vestment  reached  and  smote, 
Toiling  to  don  it  as  his  ancient  coat. 


86  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


Clad  with  the  wraith,  he  felt  himself  in  it 

A  pallid  shadow  of  memorial  time  ; 
Felt  as  a  wraith,  as  vapors  when  they  flit 

Lifting  in  moving  mist-wreaths,  hence  to  climb 
Out  of  the  deep,  dense  shadows  of  the  glen 
To  meet  the  morning  light,  dissolving  then. 

6 

Through  urging  toils  out  of  the  coat  he  slipt ; 

Then  One  approached  him,  lovingly  who  said, 
"Son,  turn  the  garment  outside  in"  :  it  whipt 

Upon  him,  flung  him,  billowed  on  his  head, 
Till  from  such  fight  anon  the  shadow  lay 
Turned  inside  out,  a  shadow  lost  in  day. 


Turn  inself  into  unself ;  this  is  how 

Manhood  persists  to  Life's  enduring  prime. 

Cleave  the  illusions  to  the  breast  and  brow ; 

Strive  unto  clearness  through  the  shadowed  grime. 

Turn  outside  in  from  the  inversive  state ; 

Inhabit  sunshine  ;  hold  the  opening  gate. 

8 

Dumbness  is  better  than  the  strident  voice, 
And  blindness  than  the  egoistic  sight, 

And  deafness  than  the  hearing  that  decoys, 
And  tastelessness  than  lawless  appetite, 

And  smelllessness  than  smellness  of  the  swine, 

And  sexlessness  than  sex  made  undivine, 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  87 


9 

In  Judgment's  hidden  holy  house  I  dwelt. 

Yet  hours  therein  held  days  of  mortal  pain ; 
For  there  I  learned  the  processes  that  melt 

The  selfness,  all  as  ice  dissolved  by  rain. 
Hence  I  serve  now  therefrom,  till  cold  and  gloom, 
Transposed,  reversed,  show  paradise  in  bloom. 


XLV. 

1 

Stripping  their  shades,  saints  show  ridiculous  ; 

Man,  growing  Godward  sane,  seems  nature's  fool. 
The  sons  of  ego  cry,  "come,  tickle  us. 

They  who  most  tickle  ego  hold  the  rule. 
This  is  the  road  to  glory  ;  they  who  spin 
The  ego  to  its  dance  by  pastimes  win." 

2 

So  men  are  tickled  trout,  that  Pretence  catches, — 
Fisher,  wrho  gropes  in  hollows  of  the  brook 

To  fill  his  creel :  the  silly  ones  he  snatches, 

Or  baits  them  with  false  pleasures  for  the  hook. 

Temptation  tickles  ;  every  cunning  ill 

Befools  the  sense,  a  ruin  to  fulfill. 


Be  not  thou  one  of  nature's  tickled  trout ; 

Barter  not  life's  rich  harvest  for  a  straw  ; 
Turn  temptative  illusion  inside  out ; 

Hold  throughiiess  to  thee  for  transposive  law. 
Pretence  and  ill,  mankind  that  crush  and  curse, 
Rule  bv  an  evolution  turned  inverse. 


88  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


Would  man  but  lead  God's  throughness  fairly  tlirougli 

Divinely  natural  from  soul  to  skin ; 
Holding  till  organs  by  such  potence  grew 

Ripe,  roseate,  radiant  to  out  from  in, 
He  might  transpose  to  statue,  stone  or  star, 
Changing  to  follow  God  in  avatar. 


There  is  an  eye  that  might  transpose  the  eye, 
Making  it  luminous  to  cleave  the  night ; 

Absorbing  through  its  organs  all  things  nigh 
Sacred  and  precious  for  divine  delight. 

Ego  is  in  the  eye  for  mote  and  beam ; 

Transform  the  vision  to  the  sight  supreme. 

6 

Hold  thou  the  eye  for  that  God  wrought  it  for ; 

Turn  by  clear  vision  to  the  truths  that  are. 
False  pleasure  is  a  falling  meteor, 

But  glorious  Truth  the  goddess  in  her  car, 
The  Goddess  Judgment ;  lest  thy  searchings  fail, 
Look  thou  to  that  of  Her  within  the  vail. 


The  pillars  of  the  man-world  shall  be  shaken  ; 

The  curtains  of  the  woman-world  rent  twain ; 
Falsehood  in  fallacy  be  overtaken, 

And  evil  in  its  garnishings  be  slain. 
The  heaven  of  I  opes  through  the  heaven  of  0. 
Judgment,  Bride-*Bridegroom,  leads  from  Lilimo'. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


XLVI. 


1 

Mankind  is  waiting  for  the  Social  Word, 

Shaping  the  solid  soil  through  fictioned  foam. 

Municipality  is  thus  restored  ; 

The  race  imparadised,  no  more  to  roam. 

New  State  is  waiting  for  New  Church  in  birth  ; 

New  Church  in  State  holds  Saviorhood  for  earth. 

2 

Heaven  smiles  upon  us  through  the  crimsoned  leaf; 

Faith,  like  autumnal  wroodlands  in  decline, 
Arches  o'er  cloistered  shades  a  blazoned  wreath, 

Fanned  by  the  pensive  memories  of  the  prime. 
Faith  served  as  Moses  by  the  budding  rod  ; 
Then  vanished,  but  the  burial  is  in  God. 

3 

Belief  survives,  but  as  the  tinted  bough  ; 

Leaves,  colors  there,  whilst  bloom  and  fruit  are  lost. 
I  saw  a  Man,  a  Laborer  at  the  plough ; 

Four  mighty  steeds,  red  maned,  before  Him  tossed. 
All  four-fold  were  their  breathings,  four-fold  one  ; 
So  Christus  drave  the  horses  of  the  sun. 

4 

The  Seasons  four,  urged  by  His  breathing  fire, 

Trod  in  a  proud  arch-natural  liberty, 
Treading  the  air,  yet  trampling  to  the  mire 

By  flames :  their  fiery  hoofs  woke  harmony. 
The  plough,  for  ploughshare,  held  a  living  wheel: 
It  pulverized  the  soil  as  flesh  might  feel. 


90  CONVERSATION    I  fr    HEAVEN. 

5 

Lo  !  'tis  the  Ploughman  Christ  who  ploughs  the  nations  ; 

The  People's  Word  is  fashioned  to  the  plough : 
The  turning  of  the  wheel,  in  swift  vibrations 

Four-fold  through  man,  His  doing  shall  avow. 
'Tis  Christ  in  Christa  cleaves  the  judgment  ground  ; 
Circles  the  planet  by  the  seasons'  round. 

6 

He  gave  a  leaf;  it  reddened  in  the  palm, 

Dissolved  to  mist,  a  gauzy  mantle  spun, 
Colored  as  Joseph's  robe,  held  breathing  balm. — 

So  clad,  I  find  mild  autumning  begun ; 
A  song  of  Judgment  in  the  season's  grief ; 
The  rise  of  God  in  falling  of  the  leaf. 


To  pleasurings  have  oped  the  sun-stained  leaves, 
That  twine  such  coronal  upon  my  brow. 

Still  'tis  through  pleasuring  that  Judgment  weaves ; 
Glad  winds,  Her  messengers,  are  sportive  now. 

In  the  etheric  auras  blithesome  sprites 

Shape  for  the  Word-whirl,  as  the  song  invites. 


The  fire-veined  poppy  droops  her  languid  lips, 
Spent  by  the  day's  brief  dalliance  with  the  sun ; 

The  pregnant  ether,  from  her  heart  that  drips, 
Diffuses  drowsy  death,  her  goal  is  won. 

See  now,  the  crimson  poppies  fail,  they  yield 

No  gifts  to  crown  Life's  gold-grained  harvest  field. 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN.  91 


XLVII. 


Broad  wings,  displayed  to  rearward  and  to  van  ; 

The  body  orbed  to  move  in  living  wheels ; 
Four  lengths,  where  one  subserved  the  natured  man  ; 

Four  breadths,  where  one  for  his  expanse  reveals  ; 
Four  heights,  for  one  that  serves  his  fall  and  rise ; 
Thus  shaped  the  cherub  to  Ezekiel's  eyes. 


Yet  manhood,  with  such  range  of  organs  fraught, 

Into  our  apprehension  may  be  led. 
Man,  through  his  fourthness  to  the  acme  wrought, 

With  fifth  dimensioned  force  is  filled  and  fed ; 
All  sons  of  God,  our  "atmas,"  kindred  still ; 
Such  glorious  ones  the  Cosmic  Word  fulfill. 

3 

Old  Papal  Rome,  subversive  dominant, 
Shaped  by  inversions  from  EzekiePs  plan  ; 

Its  pivot-point  a  four-fold  hierophant, 
Four  magi  knit  to  seeming  cherub  man  ; 

Four  giant  selfs,  sex-dried  but  sex-inled ; 

Four  brains  in  one,  one  body  and  one  bed. 

4 

The  fourth  of  these  is  perished,  buried  low, 
In  the  obscure  below  the  deep  of  deep. 

The  real  Fourthness  crossed  their  line  to  show ; 
Upon  their  wakefulness  He  folds  a  sleep. 

So,  through  their  motion,  is  cessation  prest, 

And  in  their  restlessness  a  coming  rest. 


92  CONVERSATION    IN    tt  fc  A  V  E  N  . 

5 

"  Enter  the  strong  man's  house  to  spoil  his  goods." 
Rome's  mighty  house  is  entered,  to  deliver 

To  births  of  breathing  life  the  multitudes, 
Bound  as  the  ice  flakes  in  a  frozen  river. 

A  fire  is  borne  the  waters  to  unchain. 

Judgment  is  opening  from  the  Word  One-Twain. 


So  Rome  is  moving  to  out-think  its  thought, 
To  bind  its  bindings,  to  unwill  its  will ; 

That  thus  the  symbolisms,  that  it  caught 
In  priestly  magic,  may  unweave  from  ill. 

The  terror,  that  made  God's  free  house  the  jail 

Of  chained  mankind,  "its  gates  shall  not  prevail." 

7 

For  this  think  lovingly  toward  the  great 
And  ancient  Church,  the  apostolic  see. 

Redeemed  mankind  shall  reconstruct  the  gate, 
With  sacred  womanhood  at-one  to  be : 

Then  through  the  doors  full  oft  to  sight  may  glide 

Petrus  with  Petra,  bridegroom  blest  in  bride. 


XLYIII. 

1 

Who  knows  the  secret  of  the  planet's  pain  ? 

A  Woman  doth,  Her  name  "  Immensity." 
She  was  before  the  sunshine  or  the  rain, 

Yet  the  Sun  loved  Her  and  She  was  the  Sea. 
From  nature  to  Her  flowing  robe  we  cling  : 
She  moves  amid  mankind  by  mothering. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  93 

2 

Who  knows  the  secret  of  the  planet's  birth  ? 

A  Woman  doth  ;  She  bore  it  on  Her  knee. 
Through  shadowed  soil  She  led  aromal  earth, 

The  substanced  essence  for  humanity. 
She  entered  it  to  rule  for  day  and  night ; 
Through  its  small  orb  whirled  for  Her  space,  delight. 

3 

Who  knows  the  secret  of  the  planet's  lapse? 

A  Woman  doth ;  She  hungered  for  Her  child, 
Starved  and  a-cold ;  She  wove  etheric  wraps, 

Diffusing  loving  dews,  warm,  fragrant,  mild. 
She  led  a  living  spirit  through  the  sense 
Of  loss  and  shame  ;  She  being  Providence. 

4 

Who  knows  the  secret  of  the  planet's  age  ? 

A  Woman  doth  ;  She  bears  within  Her  breast 
The  annals  of  the  human  pilgrimage. 

Race  after  race,  drawn  to  Her  bosom,  rest 
In  the  starred  ether,  with  full  being  rife. 
She  is  their  home ;  She  is  the  Blessed  Life. 


Who  knows  the  secret  of  the  planet's  gift  ? 

A  Woman  doth  ;  a  drop  of  virgin  dew 
Conceived  of  God,  the  Word-babe  to  uplift ; 

That  Babe  twain-one  forth  from  Her  Being  grew, 
And  growing  still  absorbs  the  planet's  woe  ; 
Transforms  it  to  delight,  delivering  so. 


94  CONVERSATION   IN   HEAVEN. 


6 

She  whose  large  heart  conceived  the  human  planet, 
To  Her  I  turn  in  time's  dread  hour  of  doom. 

Her  mercy-winds,  that  flow  to  bathe  and  fan  it, 

Weave  through  my  Worded  thought  a  light  in  gloom, 

A  splendor  that  is  blessing ;  heart  and  mind 

Her  infinite  sure  purpose  there  may  find. 


All  worths  that  shape  religion  hold  the  Mother  ; 

Religion. lives  but  by  the  Mother's  gift. 
Creeds,  that  contend  and  clash  with  one  another, 

Still  hold  a  promise,  urging  to  the  lift. 
Rome  holds  a  dominance  in  time's  despite, 
Since  Rome  once  felt  the  Lady  of  Delight. 

8 

Christa  is  in  organic  Christendom  ; 

Its  heavens  are  in  Her,  AVomaii  of  the  Sun . 
The  huge  self-dragon  sprays  mankind,  to  numb 

Its  sense,  that  feels  to  find  the  Twain-in-One. 
The  Infinite  All-Mother  'tis  who  strives 
In  judgment,  as  warm  Spring  to  wake  the  hives. 

9 

Frogs  heap  in  all  the  chambers  of  the  houses, 
Whilst  blood  is  on  the  lintels  of  the  doors  ; 

But  Christa  to  Her  heart  the  church  espouses, 
And  in  Her  sacrament  its  life  restores. 

Silence  shall  brood  where  now  the  organs  peal, 

Tongues  fail  from  utterance,  then  Her  ends  reveal. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  95 

10 

The  fiery  opal  fashioned  from  Her  mist ; 

The  diamond  grew  from  Her  etheric  rain  ; 
Gold  sparkled  where  Her  solar  lips  had  kissed, 

Through  pregnant  auras,  thrilled  to  unrestrain  : 
Lights  of  Her  presence  flame  from  gem  to  gem, 
All  as  one  stone  in  Christa's  diadem. 

11 

The  roots  of  myth  and  miracle  are  in  Her ; 

Science  and  song  in  Her  their  germs  conceive ; 
Manhood  uplifts  by  righteousness  to  win  Her, 

And  from  Her  womb  new  being  to  forthweave. 
Christus  shone  first,  the  Alpha  of  our  past ; 
Christa  unvails,  Omega  at  the  last. 

XLIX. 


1 

Rome  is  the  best  that  ever  shaped  to  worst ; 

The  worst  that  ever  cumbered  o'er  the  best ; 
Fountains  of  life  flow  in  her  streams  accurst ; 

There  the  white  dove,  and  there  the  dragon's  crest 
Her  hand  is  to  all  purses,  and  her  ear 
To  the  last  secrets  is  held  ever  near. 


Rome  is  the  kindest  and  the  cruelest ; 

Her  fangs  pierce  hapless,  blinded  mortals  through  ; 
All  time's  hypocrisies  by  her  are  drest 

For  vain  illusion,  and  the  motley  crew 
Of  priests,  who  are  her  players,  hold  the  kings 
And  peoples  spell-bound  by  the  mimickings. 


96  CONVERS  A  TIONIN    HEAVEN. 


3 

Rome  rises,  as  the  bosomed  sphinx,  above 

The  fierce,  red  desert  that  men  call  "the  past." 

No  man  the  secret  hath  divined  thereof ; 
All  who  essayed  have  perished,  being  cast 

Below  the  mystery,  as  souls,  alone 

Who  faced  Medusa,  and  were  grooved  in  stone. 

4 

Rome  is  that  one  who  names  herself  as  "  Mother." 
Matron,  yet  murderous,  from  her  bosom  weaned, 

The  toiling  babes  she  grasps,  to  pierce  or  smother. 
Nations  escape  her  soul-care  smirched,  bemeaned  ; 

Yet  nations,  groping  from  barbaric  night, 

Hailed  her,  their  savioress  by  love  and  light. 

5 

Rome  is  the  witness  of  Illumination. 

Entombed  writhin  her  lives  the  hidden  fire  ; 
Yet  the  black  magic,  the  abomination, 

Works  with  the  fetish,  serving  her  desire  : 
So  all  the  crafts,  by  craftiest  worldlings  known, 
Fail  when  thev  meet  the  craft  that  is  her  own. 


6 

0  Joy  !  that  there  is  "  something  in  her  embers," 
That  through  the  cold  of  ages  yet  survives ; 

A  something  in  her,  that  of  heaven  remembers, 
And  for  the  coming  of  its  kingdom  strives  ; 

A  something,  that  would  lead  a  shining  now 

From  the  arch-pontiff's  bosom  to  his  brow. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  97 


L. 


1 

Rome  the  magnificent,  Inheritress 

Of  all  that  imaged  god  or  goddess,  when 

The  Spirit,  brooding  o'er  time's  wilderness, 
Diffused  religions  through  primeval  men  ; 

Needs  must  that,  in  her  vitals,  should  survive 

The  awesome  past,  a  power  to  hold  and  strive. 


The  thunders  of  Olympus  hide  in  her, 
And  the  survivals  of  the  bolt  of  Jove. 

She  arms  her  missionizing  crucifer 

With  the  old  spells  whereto  the  magi  strove. 

Faith,  as  a  setting  sun,  orbs  through  her  lids  ; 

The  same  old  faith  that  reared  the  pyramids. 

3 

The  blade  of  Cassar  in  her  crozier  hides ; 

Staff  of  the  shepherd  for  such  priestly  hands  ; 
It  cleaves  asunder,  as  no  glaive  divides, 

Faith  from  its  reason,  freedom  from  its  wands. 
Mark  ligna-yoni,  cross  above  her  bed  ; 
Ligna  dishonored,  yoni  stricken  dead. 

4 

Rome  is  a  curse,  evolved  from  benediction  ; 

A  benediction,  spell-bound  in  a  curse ; 
A  violence  that  leads  envailed  affliction  ; 

A  whirl  of  selfhoods,  held  in  bad  from  worse. 
Rome  " storms  across  the  ages";  Israel's  hordes, 
Levites  with  war  horns,  Joshua  with  the  swords. 
7 


98  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


Yet  Rome  led  forth  by  priestly  rites  to  bless  us, 
Her  common  people  held  in  common  good ; 

Then  donned  imperial  garb,  the  shirt  of  Nessus, 
Took  on  the  pestilence  and  in  it  stood, 

Whilst,  to  her  thought,  she  wore  the  seamless  robe 

That  Christus  gave,  to  fold  it  round  the  globe. 

6 

Steadfast  to  purpose,  tireless,  unrelenting  ; 

The  best  and  bravest  of  time's  neophytes 
With  slow,  sure  skill,  unpitying,  unrepenting ; 

She  trains  to  feed  with  life  her  ghostly  rites ; 
Arms  them  with  miracle,  made  falsely  true, 
All  means  held  lawful  for  her  end  in  view. 


Rome  made  sterility  her  continent, 
And  impotence  its  horizon  and  sphere. 

She  holds  for  Christ,  as  in  her  immanent, 
But  coffins  Christ,  vailed  on  her  burial  bier. 

She  weaves  white  robes,  as  matron  all  divine, 

But  folds  with  Circe  where  she  herds  her  swine. 


She  holds  an  evolution,  but  supprest, 
And  thereby  bred  to  pestilential  breath ; 

Her  spores  invade  the  universal  breast 
Of  man  and  woman,  for  dissolvent  death. 

Crouched  on  the  globe,  that  writhes  beneath  her  knee, 

She  thunders,  "  heaven  is  closed,  I  hold  the  key." 


CONVERSATION   IN   HEAVEN.  99 


LI. 


1 

Koine  is  a  serpent,  through  all  peoples  wound, 
Whose  crest  uplifts  o'er  seas  and  lands  to  smite  ; 

An  adder  striking  at  the  head,  that  ground 
Of  permanence  with  flesh  may  not  unite  ; 

Social  dissolvent,  claiming  yet  to  be 

Sole  foundress  of  divine  societv. 


Yet  Rome  is  neither  social  nor  theistic  ; 

A  congeries  of  many  sects  in  one, 
She  burrows  in  the  caverns  of  the  mystic, 

Her  face  turned  from,  not  to,  the  Spirit  Sun. 
Her  good  are  good,  in  logical  despite 
Of  the  proud  pivot-force  that  is  her  might. 

3 

A  self-involving  motion  holds  her  twined, 
To  spin  tli rough  centuries  a  deathly  coil. 

Serpent  in  earth-snake,  proprium  of  mankind, 
She  generates  a  dense  magnetic  oil ; 

Slips  through  all  obstacles  that  interpose, 

Rounding  success  to  ruin  at  the  close. 


The  oil  gives  odor  ;  nostrils  that  inhale 
Inflate,  to  think  her  ghostly  superstition 

The  city  of  our  God,  above  the  pale 

Of  reason  reared,  Saint  John's  majestic  vision 

The  oil  exudes,  finding  a  mortal  vent 

In  pious,  languid,  carnal  self-content. 


100  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


Mock  mass,  mock  marriage,  mock  community ! 

Through  all  her  ghostly  ritual  she  spins 
Fictitious  union,  real  disunity 

Of  man  with  God, — the  body  of  the  sins. 
For  captive  sinners,  gorgeous,  festive,  gay, 
Hers  the  light  yoke  and  the  unburdened  way. 

6 

Egypt,  more  pious,  reverent,  genial  far, 

From  earlier  faith  more  stately  ritual  wrought. 

Christ,  as  Osiris,  touching  by  a  star 

Into  her  consciousness,  led  happier  thought, 

And  Christa,  One  with  Him,  for  worth  was  shown 

Humanly  grand,  as  holy  Isis  known. 


Buddha,  from  pre-incarnate  Christus,  drew 

The  nobler  charity  that  Rome  denies  ; 
He  touched  the  throughness  for  a  secret  clue  ; 

Glimpsed  to  "the  Path";  Rome  stumbles  there  and  lies 
Gross,  heavy,  smirched  with  every  wealthy  ill, 
Self-eased,  self-amorous,  self-seeking  still. 

8 

Rome  would  make  history  her  palimpsest ; 

Effacing  truth  that  sacred  Wisdom  scrolled, 
And  over-writing  all  with  texts  at  best 

Misread,  or  plagiarized  from  ages  old, 
And  miracles  that  spiritism  weaves, 
Where  nature  imitates  and  self  deceives. 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN.  101 

9 

Rome  is  a  mystery  in  third  dimension, 
Based  upon  groups  of  unsexed  magic  men, 

Who,  age  by  age,  scheme  with  a  fixed  intention 
To  rule  mankind  by  priestliness,  as  when 

Brahm  reigned  o'er  India  by  a  sacred  caste, 

Or  Samuel  smote  Philistia  to  devast. 


LIL 

1 

True  scriptures  of  the  ancient  days  predict 
The  old  world's  ending  in  a  whirl  of  fire. 

Our  Mother,  Judgment,  never  doth  afflict ; 
Ends  flow  as  music  from  Apollo's  lyre  ; 

The  Sun  God,  pouring  through  aerial  seas 

Floods  of  rich  life  that  ope  to  melodies. 


Ruins  of  men  exhale  by  a  cremation. 

A  spicy  breath  of  aromatic  flame, 
Etheric  blent  with  psychic  respiration, 

Dissolves  the  flesh,  that  sleep  at  first  o'ercame. 
The  shadowings  of  organs  trail  away, 
As  night-mists  melting  on  the  lips  of  day. 

3 

This  lyric  verse  is  all  improvisation  : 

Through  reasoning  truth  the  verbal  rhythm  plies. 
So,  in  the  closure  of  this  generation, 

She  who  is  Melody  shall  improvise  : 
Christa,  by  sweetness  of  Her  reasoned  strain 
Leads  living  raptures  through  the  human  pain. 


102  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


4 

Loosen  the  bands  that  held  the  tempered  mesh 
Of  soul-knit  shadows ;  song  is  flying,  flying. 

The  undulaiit,  swift  measures  meet  the  flesh 
At  nerve  and  pore  ;  illusive  life  is  dying. 

The  world  that  was  is  lost  beneath  the  waves 

Of  minstrelsy,  that  overwhelm  the  graves. 

5 

The  amphora  is  pierced,  that  held  the  flood 
Of  solar  nectar  sealed  from  mortal  lips ; 

Clear  as  celestial  ichor,  warm  as  blood 

From  summered  spring  in  paradise,  it  dips 

Mankind  into  its  passion,  by  surprise, 

Faint  as  dreamed  odors  that  through  trance  arise. 

6 

Now  Judgment  in  Her  melody  advances, 

Slowly  as  mist-wreaths  from  ethereal  streams  ; 

Whilst  all  her  quickenings  glide  on  through  trances, 
Born  of  calm  sleep  en  vailed  in  odorous  dreams. 

The  strain  that  ends  the  sure,  mysterious  quest 

Is  pity,  dearest,  tenderest,  sweetest,  best. 


LIII. 

1 

The  Twain-in-One  remains ;  all  imaged  gods 
And  goddesses  from  human  thought  are  fled. 

Christus-in-Christa  wreathes  the  judgment  rods 
For  Love's  new  marriage  scepter:  from  the  thread 

Of  lingering  human  life  that  held  their  twine, 

They  weave  rich  purples,  royal  robes  divine. 


CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN.  108 


Beams  forth  the  One-in-Twain  ;  all  lights  are  gone 
That,  by  self-reason's  fantasy,  were  tossed, 

To  deck  the  marshes  of  oblivion 

With  mimic  lusters,  and  to  weave  the  frost 

Of  the  self-nature,  waste  and  withering, 

To  frail,  false  hues  of  preternatural  spring. 

3 

The  sun  robes  in  Their  glory,  and  the  moon  : 
One-Twain,  Lord-Lady,  orb-in-orb  appear. — 

Stand  with  me  in  the  Judgment  rise  ;  'tis  noon , — 
Noon  as  in  God-time ;  centered  in  the  sphere, 

The  splendor  of  pure  light,  by  rays-in-rays, 

Into  man's  universal  reason  plays, 

4 

For  wisdom  that  is  vision. — What  thou  wilt, 
Ask,  in  the  Word-faith,  ask  and  so  receive. 

Word-faith,  the  lightning  scepter,  grasp  its  hilt, 
Hold  up  to  Christus-Christa  :  breaths  that  weave 

Through  Deity  our  prayers  lead  swift  reply ; 

Open  the  sight  to  sky  transcending  sky. 


Flashes  of  truth,  the  lightning  of  the  Word, 
Illuminate  the  consciousness,  then  thunders. 

Hear  the  deep,  organed  bass  that,  to  the  third 

From  the  fourth  fullness,  leaps  while  nature  sunders. 

Thrown  for  our  sight  dimensions  twain  to  one ; 

Space  led  through  space,  God  Father  in  God  Son. 


104  CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 


6 

Touch  to  the  twainness  ;  feel  the  interplay. 

The  greater  and  the  lesser  heavens  achord. 
'Tis  thus  I  fashion  this  foreshowing  lay, 

Lifted  through  flesh  in  noon-tide  to  the  Lord. 
'Tis  so  I  touch  the  vibrant  judgment  bell, 
That  chimes  for  paradise,  where  self  makes  hell 


PART    THIRD 


"  The  sufferings  of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be 
compared  with  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed  in  us.  The 
creature  was  made  subject  to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but  by 
reason  of  Him  who  hath  subjected  the  same  in  hope ;  because 
the  creature  itself  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  cor- 
ruption into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  Ourselves 
also,  which  have  the  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  groan  within 
ourselves,  waiting  for  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption  of 
the  body." 

ROM.  vm.  18—23. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN 


LIV. 


1 
THE  motion  of  the  time  is  all  too  fast 

For  long  persistence.     Life  is  slow  and  sweet ; 
Judgment  becomes  Repose  ;  its  shadows,  cast 

To  find  the  ending,  rest  beneath  the  feet. 
Lives  into  lives  infolding,  men  are  free, 
Each  in  the  other's  new-born  infancy. 


2 

Feel  the  repose.     When  final  chains  are  broken, 
That  held  mankind  in  bondage  to  the  third, 

'Twill  be  as  if  Deliverance  rose,  awoken 

To  fold  the  saved  in  fourthness  of  the  Word. 

All  who  survive,  led  through  the  last  event, 

Unite  in  free  consensus  of  consent. 


3 

The  end  brings  quietude,  in  calm  assurance 
That  God  Twain-One  shall  nevermore  remove. 

No  more  the  painful  striving  for  endurance, 
No  coiling  serpent  and  no  bleeding  dove. 

Doubt  vanishes ;  indifference  is  unknown  ; 

Each  feels  the  other's  heart  his  very  own. 


108  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


4 

That  which  men  hoped  for  from  the  fact  of  death, 
That  which  men  battled  for  in  anguished  strife, 

That  which  men  vaguely  felt  through  shadowed  faith, 
Is  realized  in  one  new  fact,  New  Life. 

Men  died  not,  simply  it  was  death  that  died : 

We  live,  but  in  the  One-Twain  glorified. 

5 

'Tis  a  new  world  evolved  through  consciousness ; 

Not  as  the  old  ;  the  former  things  are  fled. 
The  vision  of  the  Loving  Loveliness, 

Through  woman's  life  in  man's,  disperses  dread 
And  fear  of  loss  and  change  and  grief  and  thrall ; 
Griefs  melt  away  as  music's  dying  fall. 

6 

The  Loving  Loveliness !     Her  effluence  laves 
The  voice,  with  Sowings  for  the  living  speech  ; 

Language,  reborn,  celestial  from  the  graves, 
Moves  by  rich,  undulating  swells  that  reach 

To  thrill  and  penetrate  the  common  ear, 

As  Christus  spake  for  Lazarus  to  hear. 


LV. 


1 
The  better  life  in  poesy  is  killed. 

Minstrelsy  fails,  as  prophecy  before ; 
Yet  men,  from  song's  rich  treasury,  would  gild 

Time's  wasted  forehead  with  new  spangled  ore. 
Browning  and  Tennyson  !  alas,  the  blind 
Song  Samsons  to  the  idol's  pillars  bind. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  109 


With  storms  of  melody  the  walls  were  shaken ; 

Carlylean  thunders  melted  in  the  strains  ; 
Yet  in  Delilah's  chain  their  lives  were  taken ; 

The  verse  was  wrought  of  shadows  and  remains. 
The  fictile  woman  imaged  in  the  third 
Held  them,  dream-spelled,  bound  from  the  Bridal  Word. 

3 

Saint  John  would  chant  a  new  apocalypse  ; 

Saints  Michael  and  Ithuriel  forge  new  spears ; 
Saint  Dante  draw  from  Beatrice's  lips 

Wine  of  such  melody  as  charms  the  spheres  ; 
Saint  Boehme  and  Saint  Swedenborg  prolong, 
Through  lives  of  rhythmic  fire,  the  Lord's  new  song ; 

4 

The  music-breathing  horses  of  the  sun 

Whirl  the  song-motion  by  Apollo's  wheels ; 

Yea,  Lyric  Heavens,  by  all  their  lives  twain-one, 
Tone  for  new  ages,  whilst  old  time  repeals. — 

Vain,  vain !  where  Browning,  Tennyson  but  fail, 

Barred  gates  of  silence  'gainst  the  Word  prevail. 


Dear  poets,  whose  melodious  hearts  were  beakers, 

They  could  not  brim  though  Christa  poured  the  wine 

They  dwelt  enthralled  amid  the  pleasure  seekers ; 

Their  tents  were  pitched  where  Circe  fools  her  swine  ; 

They  kissed  Delilah  ;  felt  their  locks  divide  ; 

Toiled  in  smooth  ego's  fetter-house,  and  died, 


110  CONVEKSATION     IN     HEAVEN. 


6 

Heart,  heart,  thou  shalt  not  break  in  the  suppression. 

God-life,  new  life,  wake  in  the  breathing  numbers. 
Think  through  the  fourthness  to  the  song's  confession ; 

Loose  the  pent  fire,  in  melody  that  slumbers. 
Christ's  lyric  lance  must  penetrate  the  curled 
Self-dragon, — Michael,  fighting  for  the  world. 


LVI. 

1 

Through  breathful  quietude  the  motion  floweth 
That  leads  the  Song  Word  to  its  revolution. 

'Tis  by  its  minstrelsy  the  Spirit  goeth 
That  liberates  the  heavens  for  evolution. 

Judgment,  who  bathes  in  rest  for  new  attire, 

Leads  the  song's  action  by  etheric  fire. 


I  sat  in  Mother  Judgment's  banquet  hall. 

There  were  twelve  Poets  at  the  table  round, 
And  She  was  manifest  to  each  in  all, 

Through  their  twelve  brides,  all  as  Her  lilies  crowned. 
To  each  through  all  She  passed  by  swift  returns, 
Brimming  their  hearts  from  Her  melodious  urns. 

3 

A  roseate  splendor  canopied  the  feast ; 

Each  in  the  others  tasted  bosom  bread, 
And  sacred  nectars,  that  for  cheer  increased, 

Multiplied  to  them  as  they  quaffed  and  fed ; 
But,  when  the  banquet  ended,  for  retire 
They  led  a  joy-dance,  whilst  One  played  the  lyre. 


CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN.  Ill 


4 

He  seemed  the  minstrel  of  some  ancient  king. 

Sweet  gladness  interflowed  them,  breasting  through  ; 
Twelve  stars  of  radiation  glimmering 

Robed  them  in  color  as  when  morn  is  new  ; 
So  twelve-in-twelve  they  woke  a  song  of  glee 
In  the  dance-music,  "this  is  He,  is  He  !" 


Thus  the  Lord  Christus  manifested  there  ; 

Yet,  manifesting,  so  diffused  His  robe 
That  the  twelve  poets  each  took  on  to  wear 

The  semblance  that  was  His  upon  the  globe ; 
Whilst,  from  His  ancient  habitude  unvailed, 
Christus  rose  in  them  and  the  song  prevailed. 

6 

Theiicc  afterward  He  oped  to  them  twelve  chambers, 
Each  in  the  Lady  Christa's  holy  house ; 

One  body  in  such  apostolic  members, 

Twelve,  each  one-twain,  bride  with  her  sacred  spouse, 

And,  while  He  blest  them  by  the  wand  and  rod, 

They  folded  to  sweet  rest  in  One-Twain  God. 


LVII. 

1 

"•Signs  of  the  Son  of  Man  "  appeared  in  heaven, 
When  Swedenborg  the  seer,  by  intromission, 

Saw  the  closed  scripture  of  old  Israel  riven, 

And  fourth  dimensioned  light  break  through  to  vision, 

Wise,  manly,  simple,  virtuous  and  sincere, 

New  spring,  through  sad  old  autumn,  caught  his  ear. 


112  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


So,  in  time's  withered  foliage  round  him  drifted, 
He  felt  to  buds  that  secret  blossoms  nursed  : 

Vails  after  vails  that  closed  the  Mother  lifted ; 
Judgment  upon  his  lips  the  advent  versed  ; 

Apostles  on  white  steeds  from  heaven  outrode 

Tward  the  far  earth  ;  exultantly  they  trode. 


Prophetic,  yet  for  prophecies  that  arrowed, 
Not  rounded  to  the  compass  of  the  sphere, 

He  saw  that  third  dimensioned  times  were  narrowed 
The  " Heavenly  Jerusalem"  full  near. 

Whilst  Europe  lapped  in  luxury  and  decline, 

He  met  the  tempest,  hastening  to  the  line. 

4 

The  nineteenth  century's  latter  half,  he  thought, 

Would  feel  the  Holy  City  in  descent. 
So  the  New  Church,  all  in  a  mirage  caught, 

Figured  before  for  the  divine  event. 
Through  language  oft  pedantic,  hard,  full  stone, 
The  Worded  lightning  by  him  spake  and  shone. 

5 

I  saw  him  in  the  Mother's  blissful  palace, 
Bathed  all  in  merriment,  his  heart  a-flow, 

Whilst  words  escaped  his  lips  in  joyful  sallies. 
Four  gracious  ladies  posed  as  one,  to  grow 

Into  a  round  white  girl  before  his  eyes  : 

Through  her  the  Goddess  opened  by  surprise. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  113 


6 

She  touched  him  on  his  full  conjugial  chin, 
Called  him  a  name  of  preciousness,  and  fed 

His  bosom  with  delightsome  airs,  to  win 
A  wisdom  to  his  brow  :  'twas  then  he  said, 

"  Mother-in-Father,  in  Thy  flesh  I  feel 

The  spiritual  sense,  but  by  the  heel. 


"It  presses  on  mankind's  vulgarity; 

Whilst  from  the  cUmples  of  the  rosy  skin 
A  vortice — God  in  solidarity — 

Whirls  down  to  spiral  the  vile  city's  din. — 
Now  Peter,  Peter !  " — at  the  call  drew  nigh 
One  crucified  of  yore  head  down  to  die. 


8 

"  Now  Peter,"  thus  the  wiser  babe  spake  on, 
"  Now  Peter,  tell  me  if  thy  bird  will  crow." 

Peter  flung  forth  a  bird  his  brow  upon, 

And  rippling  laughter  caught  him  soon  and  so  ; 

But  the  apostle  gravely  said,  "  I  preach  : 

Morn's  clarion  bird  is  more  than  any  speech. 

9 

"Could  but  this  fowl  perch  on  men's  brows  below, 
And  flash  new  morning  through  their  optic  sense, 

And  scatter  bridal  dews  of  Lilimo' 

From  his  brave  wings,  to  cool  their  fierce  offense, 

And  trumpet  where  they  in  denial  stand, 

They  might  awake  to  Judgment  in  their  land." 


114  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

10 

The  sage  stood  silent ;  swift  the  vision  passed. 

Again  the  four  wise  ladies  nigh  him  stood ; 
One  after  one  their  vails  upon  him  cast, 

Till  four-fold  splendors  robed  him,— truth  in  good 
His  flesh  absorbed  the  mantles,  and  their  blaze 
Robed  him  as  naked  innocence  arrays. 

11 

Being  thus  clad,  he  worshiped;  giving  thanks 
For  the  Divine  so  manifest  that  day. 

A  pleasant  stream,  that  wound  tw*ixt  flowery  banks, 
Drew  him  into  the  wavelets  by  a  play, 

And  rising  there  its  naiad  met  his  side, 

A  maiden  of  the  Truth-well,  now  his  bride. 

LVIII. 

1 

To  ask  a  blessing  of  the  Lord  One-Twain, 
The  attitude  is  high  straightforwardness. 

Say  what  you  think  and  feel  by  meanings  plain ; 
Then  leave  it ;  never  importune  or  press. 

Remember,  all  good  gifts  are  given  for  ends 

Of  human  good  ;  speak  as  to  Faithful  Friends. 

2 

In  Shinto  worship,  knelt  before  a  mirror, 
The  Japanese  approach  by  open  breast, 

Seeking  that  every  stain  of  fault  or  error 
May  be  exposed,  revealed  and  thus  confest. 

Seek  to  be  mirrored  into  God,  that  so 

The  purities  of  truth  may  interflow. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  115 

3 

'Tis  purity  of  purpose,  led  to  sense 

Through  all  the  avenues  of  mind  and  heart, 

That  holds  the  vital  ethers  to  condense, 

Force,  freedom,  courage,  fullness  to  impart, 

Till  purity  is  fashioned  to  a  band 

Of  living  steel,  a  weapon  for  the  hand. 

4 

Angels  are  all  'in  childlike  innocence. 

Such  innocence,  to  heroism  led, 
Guides  the  new  man  to  breathful  dominance  ; 

Persistence  in  him,  through  him,  to  him  wed. 
Full  prayer's  full  answer  must  in  this  consist, 
Wisdom  to  know,  that  service  may  persist. 


The  Word  by  fourthness  through  our  being  plies. 

I  saw  in  Mother's  house  the  "  wishing  gate." 
Four  Wishers  fashioned  there  to  meet  the  eyes  ; 

The  four  to  show  One  Lady  rose  elate  ; 
Wove  winged  robes  without,  within  ;  but  soon 
Floated  beyond,  seen  as  the  Judgment  Moon. 

6 

Judgment  is  God-wish  in  particulars, 

Orbed  to  a  universal  for  the  globe  ; 
Hence  every  wish,  in  one  desire  of  Hers, 

Is  wrought  to  outline  an  etheric  robe, 
Textured  so  fine  that  not  the  tiniest  mote 
Of  the  world's  ill  may  through  its  meshes  float. 


116  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


But,  through  such  woven  orb,  Her  wishes  flying 
Glide  as  swift  sounds  of  music's  vital  scale  ; 

With  rise  and  fall,  wish  unto  wish  replying, 
To  penetrate  the  furious  passion  gale 

Of  egoistic  wishes,  base,  unkind, 

Led  from  the  frenzied,  fatuous  mankind. 


In  Ego's  wish-world  aye  originate 

The  fires  that  desolate,  the  blasts  that  smite 

Young  eden,  that  the  Word-Truth  would  create, 
From  the  small  wishes  that  are  God's  delight. 

The  smallest  wish  is  pregnant  with  its  will, 

That  grows  by  time  to  vanish,  or  fulfill. 

9 
There  was  a  mirror  in  that  Lady's  hand 

Whom  I  have  loved  and  worshiped  from  my  youth  ; 
So,  looking  in  it,  I  beheld  a  band 

Of  infants,  each  an  innocence  of  truth. 
She  spake,  "these  are  My  wishes,  hived  in  thee." — 
"Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy," 

10 

Sang  Poet  Wordsworth. — So,  as  I  remember, 
A  wistful  child  grown  to  but  three  years'  size, 

I  woke  one  dawn-tide  in  a  lone  white  chamber, 
And  sportive  fairies  danced  before  mine  eyes, 

Gold  clad,  gold  winged,  form,  feature,  motion  won 

From  living  light-beams,  infants  of  the  sun. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  11? 

11 

"Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy"; 

Hence  heaven  may  touch  the  eyes  for  impregnation, 
And  in  the  mind  beget  a  progeny 

Of  wishes,  multiply  a  fairy  nation. 
Thus  Heaven  may  from  the  first  within  us  grow ; 
Its  "  New  Jerusalem  "  descending  so. 


LIX. 

1 

Not  half  the  water,  that  the  miller  sees 

Glide  in  his  flume,  may  serve  to  turn  the  wheel. 

Not  half  the  interfluent  melodies 

The  poet  feels  may  in  his  verse  reveal. 

Not  half  the  heroes  to  the  wars  who  go 

The  triumph  hail,  nor  bind  the  conquered  foe. 


Results  are  hidden  in  the  summer's  path ; 

The  ripened  seeds  for  after  seasons  rise. 
Time's  glacial  ages  buried  in  cold  wrath 

Germs  to  bud  fortli  for  future  paradise. 
Truths  may  unfold  through  poets,  now  and  then, 
From  seed  that  fell  in  eden's  garden  glen. 

3 

Exalt  the  Infinite  Economy  ; 

Live  in  it,  serve  in  it  and  by  it  thrive. 
Changed  heavens  and  hells  to  an  autonomy 

Inweave  ;  that  coming  aions  may  derive, 
For  ampler  systems  of  the  human  kind, 
Angels  made  flesh,  in  heroisms  twined. 


118  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

4 

The  sparrows  fall,  yet  not  one  birdling  flutters 
To  dust  beyond  the  Father-Mother  sight. 

The  Word,  made  Song,  to  us  the  truth  re-utters ; 
The  Infinite  Economists  delight 

In  breeding,  through  all  loss,  the  priceless  gain. 

No  psychic  germ  of  man  is  born  in  vain. 

5 

Excess  of  waters,  from  the  miller's  flume, 
Sweeps  on  to  serve  the  lilies  of  the  linn. 

Excess  of  music,  from  the  minstrel's  loom, 
"Weaves  living  sympathies  to  fold  us  in. 

Excess  of  heroes,  from  one  People's  throe, 

Robes  Victory  in  a  crimson  after-glow ; 

6 

Rising  to  meet  the  sunrise,  and  to  make 

Freedom's  new  day  more  glorious.    They  unprison  ;- 
Souls  that  are  clarions  for  God's  lips  awake, — 

In  heroisms  wake,  for  triumphs  risen. 
I  saw  the  Mother  as  Diana  go, 
The  Virgin  Huntress  armed  with  spear  and  bow. 


Eve's  glowing  crescent  o'er  Her  forehead  shone  ; 

The  luminous  white  ether  was  Her  robe. 
Emergent,  gliding  from  Her  silver  throne, 

Arisen  heroes  wrought  the  orbing  globe, 
And,  in  associated  valor  dight, 
Diffused  warm  courage  for  time's  lower  night. 


CONVERSATION1    IN    itEAVEN.  119 


8 

Judgment,  as  Valor  in  the  innocent, 
'Nears,  the  world's  animosities  to  stem  : 

'Tis  thus  methinks  the  Heavens  are  in  descent  : 
Only  they  come  as  Judgment  moves  in  them ; 

But  She  includes  them  all,  cathedral-wise, 

In  the  orb-temple  of  Her  sanctities. 


LX. 


1 

Nature  is  all  a  moving  allegory : 

In  symbols  all  the  third  dimension  stands, 
Waiting  till  men  shall  comprehend  her  story, 

Finding  the  Word  Truth  leaning  o'er  her  bands. 
The  scripture  of  the  ages  forms  and  plies, 
Winged  to  upbear  free  manhood  for  the  rise. 


Yet  third  dimensioned  minds  but  scan  the  scripture, 
And  third  dimensioned  lives  but  scripture  feel, 

Caught  in* the  shaded  allegoric  texture. 
Revealment  doth  not  all  its  Word  reveal ; 

The  affluent  mansion,  by  its  lavish  store, 

Conceals  the  Master,  who  is  yet  the  "Door." 

3 

The  Door  is  everywhere  :  Word  omnipresent 

Invites  each  passer-by  to  be  a  guest ; 
Scholar  and  simplist,  pontiff,  bard  and  peasant. 

Scripture  is  woven  for  our  nightly  rest; 
Scripture  the  basis  of  our  worlded  stay  ; 
The  moving  firmament  that  spans  our  way. 


120  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


4 

Kead  Swedenborg  anew  with  larger  thought ; 

For  Hebrew  scrolls,  that  met  his  visioned  sense, 
Peruse  the  universe  in  symbols  wrought  ; 

Find  there  the  immanent  Omniscience. 
Man's  form,  the  microcosm,  holds  insealed 
The  Flying  Form  of  God,  yet  unrevealed. 

5 

The  Jewish  lattice  opened  to  the  star. 

For  lattice  claim  the  firmament ;  look  through 
Time's  universe  to  Christ  in  avatar ; 

From  thirdness  into  fourthness  thus  pursue  ; 
Find  God,  thy  Morn,  through  oriented  eyes. 
Thou  art  a  scripture,  man,  the  Word  supplies, 

6 

Through  each  fine  organ  of  thy  four-fold  frame, 
Fire-substance  of  free  being ;  taste  and  see  : 

Find  God,  the  Vital  Fire  that  feeds  thy  flame. 
Thou  art  ingermed,  involved  in  Deity. 

For  re-creation  of  thy  form  of  shells, 

Overcome  the  hostile  ego  that  repels. 


God  the  Imagiiier  imagined  earth  : 
The  universe  grew  from  imagination. 

In  past,  in  present  and  in  everforth, 
Word,  the  Revealer,  fills  the  revelation  ; 

Yet  vails  therein,  free  creatures  to  invite, 

And  form  them  to  God's  likeness  of  delight. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  121 

8 

God  the  Imaginer  imagined  thee  ; 

Else  thou  an  imaged  likeness  hadst  not  been. 
God  is  the  Secret  of  the  mystery, 

That  vails  thy  human  consciousness  within. 
That  mystery,  closed  in  earthly  common  place, 
Seeks  to  transform  thee  to  its  form  of  grace  ; 

9 

To  wing  thee  for  angelical  advances ; 

To  voice  thee  in  the  paradisal  choirs, 
And  lead  thee  through  the  hymeneal  dances ; 

Enrobing  thee  in  the  etheric  fires. 
A  winged  germ,  seed  of  the  Word,  art  thou? 
That  Word  is  thine  ;  the  breath-wind  woos  thee  now. 

10 

I  pause, — a  man  in  all  who  suffer  smitten  ; 

A  voice,  through  buffetings  that  breasts  the  gale  ; 
A  flying  flame,  yet  by  the  Word-fire  litten  ; 

Voice,  flame  and  presence  fugitive  and  frail. — 
The  vision  overcomes  me  ;  songs  that  burn 
Find  silence  in  my  bosom  by  return. 

11 

A  mortal  may  overcome  mortality  ; 

Scriptures  rise  glorified,  orbed  in  their  Word  ; 
Freedom  put  on  divine  fatality  ; 

Fulfilment  battle  on,  through  hopes  deferred, 
To  rest  where  bridal  vails  from  heaven  are  spun. 
Lord  Christus  guides  the  horses  of  the  sun. 


122  CONVERSATION    IN 


LXI. 


1 

Each  house  I  dwell  in  proves  a  prison  house, 

Peopled  with  pains  and  compassed  by  the  grave. 

Ego's  worst  dominance  at  last  avows  ; 

Truth's  firmest  freeman  now  is  lowliest  slave. 

I  search  the  planet  for  a  spot  of  rest ; — 

Not  one,  each  holds  a  dagger  to  the  breast. 

2 

The  truth  of  love,  of  reason  and  of  act, 

The  New  Life's  martyr  anguish,  and  its  risen 

Persistence,  all  of  potencies  compact, 

Serve  but  to  make  the  groaning  earth  their  prison. 

I  stand  as  one  upon  a  lifting  reef, 

Whelmed  by  the  universal  unbelief : 

3 

For  ego  now  is  growing  pestilential : 

Its  pestilence  the  cultured  mind  invades. 

Illusions  overcome  the  evidential, 

For  God  has  set ;  night  moves  in  falling  shades. 

The  gate  is  barred ;  Christus,  who  is  our  door, 

Is  closed  upon  ;  the  opening  shows  no  more. 

4 

Ego,  the  planet's  ghastly  poisoner, 

Sets  loose  all  airs  of  mortal  ills  that  are, 

To  crush  the  senses  that  for  God-life  stir  ; 
To  whirl  our  wasting  bodies  o'er  the  bar 

Of  dissolution  to  the  hungry  waves. 

Judgment  but  enters  to  emerge  through  graves. 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN.  123 


Pains  through  the  winds  are  woven  ;  pains  uplift 

Where'er  the  feet  on  sacred  errands  go. 
The  human  waters  hold  the  icy  drift ; 

Each  sentient  structure  chills  to  meet  the  flow  : 
Sense-thought  in  godness  feels  its  nerves  uncoil ; 
Feels  dissolution  of  its  powers  make  spoil. 

6 

Yet  ego's  mind  enjoys  inanity. 

There  was  a  "  wise  one  "  talked  last  eve  with  me  ; 
His  thoughts  were  shells,  their  instinct  vanity, 

Yet  as  a  self-created  god  spake  he ; 
"  Christus  an  earlier  comrade  at  the  most  : 
Himself  god,  father,  son  and  holy  ghost." 

7 

"  Yea,  ye  shall  be  as  gods";  such  gods  are  they 

As  specters  are,  that  through  death's  dream-doors  flutter; 

Glow-worms  that  simulate  the  starred  array ; 
Bats  who  shrill  cries  from  fetid  caverns  utter. 

Creeds,  cultures,  sciences  and  arts  enlarge, 

Shaping  fool  ego  to  such  last  discharge. 

8 

Such  theosophical  illusions  lent 

A  specious  color  to  old  Egypt,  when 
The  faith  of  Osiris  and  Isis  went 

Down  to  its  hades,  lost,  forgotten  then. 
Suclf  passed  for  ruin  o'er  the  Roman  world, 
Ere  the  barbarian  hydra  crushed  and  curled. 


124  CONVERSATION    IN    &EAVEN. 


9 

To  flaunt  the  utter  godlessness  of  God ; 

To  shape  the  final  manlessness  of  men  ; 
To  couch  the  occult  in  a  devious  fraud ; 

Rewrite  the  Past  with  Fiction  for  a  pen, 
And  swing  the  torch  that  lures  to  ruin's  shore, 
Ego,  grown  theosophic,  bars  the  "Door." 

10 

Rome  whirled  in  conflagration  ;  Nero  fiddled. 

This  theosophic  ego  views  the  fire 
That  whelms  Society,  begrimed,  bedeviled, 

And  plays  its  pipe  for  idiots  to  admire ; 
Then  whispers,  where  the  topmost  blaze  has  clomb, 
"It  is  the  Christians  who  set  fire  to  Rome." 

11 

Yet  they  who  hold  the  fourthness  dare  the  grip 
Of  the  envenomed  octopus  ;  nor  bide 

In  himalay,  to  bid  the  war  dogs  slip 

Who  bay  at  Christus,  bleeding,  crucified. 

Subtlest  of  foes  are  they  who  last  we  meet, 

Aroused  where  Truth  leads  to  the  judgment  seat. 


LXII. 

1 

Souls  in  the  ego  swallowed  up,  and  given 

To  the  full  egoistic,  mind  and  will, 
Efface  the  form  and  portraiture  of  heaven, 

And,  for  the  Living  Word,  with  semblance  fill  : 
As  intellectual  phantoms  they  dispread ; 
Void  images  of  manhood  that  is  fled. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  125 


"  What  shall  it  profit  to  a  man  if  he 

Gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  soul  thereby"  ? 
The  seeming  man,  a  vain  self-deity, 

Subsists  in  pretence,  an  organic  lie. 
Ego,  the  occupant,  his  content  flows ; 
Gilding  the  surface,  shaping  to  its  close. 

3 

As  a  "mahatma"  he  may  posture  so  ; 

Subversive  evolution  for  his  art : 
He  may  project  a  doubled  selfness  ;  go, 

By  "astral  forms,"  in  nature's  occult  part; 
Build  magic  to  a  fortress  and  a  shrine, 
And  subject  mortals  to  his  purpose  twine. 

4 

In  self-idolatry  grown  absolute, 

He  may  assume  the  philanthropic  dress  ; 

Priest,  ruler,  scholar  ;  pluck  the  planet's  fruit, 
Aloof  in  a  secretive  lordliness  ; 

Weave  nature  through  his  glamour  for  a  spell ; 

Move  panoplied  in  seeming  miracle. 

5 

Obliterating  sex-life  from  the  soul, 

He  may  emerge  as  the  supreme  magician  ; 

His  lore  by  secret  artifice  outroll, 
For  a  religion  that  is  irreligion  ; 

Dead  to  all  sympathy,  in  time  remain, 

Implied  in  mortal  cold  and  free  from  pain. 


126  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

6 

In  occult  third  dimension,  past  the  bounds 
Of  seen  mortality,  he  may  have  built 

His  deadly  pleasure  house,  where  nature's  wounds 
Are  open,  and  the  planet's  life  is  spilt 

To  streams  of  wasted  vigors,  that  inflow 

The  downward  growth,  a  fictioning  to  show, 


As  inimic  eden,  tempe,  sybaris  : 

The  oozing  breasts  of  nature  heave  therein, 
Reviving  pleasures  to  a  spectral  bliss, 

Glancing  by  wasting  fires  to  light  her  "  Zin," 
Her  den  of  many  caverns,  where  she  wiles, 
To  fold  the  souls  of  guile  into  her  guiles. 

8 

Such  their  "devachan"  by  its  real  fact, 
Where  egos  rest,  and  taste  by  emanation 

Pleasures  that  from  past  earthliness  re-act ; 
Dream  on  to  think  the  close  re-incarnation. 

This  is  the  hidden  source,  whose  Sowings  pour 

To  earth  for  ego-theosophic  lore. 


LXIII. 


1 

There  is  a  Borderland,  not  Heaven  nor  Hell, 

Where  souls,  all  spell-bound  by  the  earth's  attraction, 

As  shells  or  phantoms  find  their  greater  shell 
In  failure,  fraud,  fatuity  and  faction. 

'Tis  mirage,  image ;  changeful  gleams  refract 

From  Time's  huge  comedy  and  tragic  act. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  127 


it 


Mediums"  are  peep-holes  in  the  shadowed  curtain, 
And  "  sensitives"  are  fingers  for  the  feel. 
Uncertainties  thus  imitate  the  certain  ; 

Ghost-babble  takes  on  knowings  to  reveal. 
'Tis  parasitical :  the  psychic  flies 
Buzz  to  mankind  ;  'tis  here  their  feeding  lies. 

3 

"  Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  yet  He  may  be  found." 

And  ego  be  coerced  to  disappear. 
Be  not  beguiled  through  fact  in  falsehood  bound ; 

The  crystal  pendant  in  the  specter's  ear. 
When  Hades  earthward  lifts  to  cast  her  dead, 
Judgment  has  troubled  her,  the  darts  are  sped. 


Nirvana's  path  is  through  the  city  streets, 

Where'er  the  men  of  rescue  hold  their  might ; 

Where'er  God's  heart  through  heaven-born  pity  beats  ; 
Where'er  the  holy  dove  is  found  in  flight ; 

Where'er  the  heart's  new  touch  to  God  begins 

By  love  that  leads  forgiveness  of  the  sins. 


Ego-theosophist,  lo  !  he  denies 

Christ  the  Forgiver  ; — be  it  so  to  him. 

Nature  needs  no  forgiveness,  but  she  dies, 

Lost  as  the  wine  drop  from  the  beaker's  brim. 

Who  hath  not  sinned,  betrayed  by  ego's  lust? 

In  the  Forgiver  of  the  sins  we  trust. 


128  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


6 

" Grace  did  the  more  abound  where  sin  abounded": 
Tis  grace  that  wings  the  Incarnation  on. 

Men  by  sin's  consequents  are  hurt  and  hounded : 
Christ  the  Defender  bids  the  fault  "  begone"  ; 

Imputes  His  righteousness,  instilled  to  grow 

And  fill  the  life,  assimilated  so. 


Savior,  in  Thee  we  trust !  'tis  Saviorism 

First,  last  and  always,  that  our  faith  invites. 

The  race  is  mazed  in  ego's  fateful  schism  ; 
Ours  be  the  "path,"  in  Him  who  re-unites. 

"Survival  of  the  fit"?— the  fit  are  they, 

Repentant,  who  believe  and  who  obey. 


LXIV. 

1 

"Strike  while  the  iron  is  hot";  the  hammer  ply  ; 

'Tis  thus  dull  ore  transforms  to  piercing  dart. 
Pause  not  for  flaming  sparks  that  near  thee  fly  ; 

Christus  the  Workman  nerves  thee  for  thy  part. 
I  saw  in  Judgment's  labor  hall  again 
Christus,  the  Workfellow  of  workingmen. 

2 

Gold  mist  His  mighty  forehead  overhung ; 

Gold  sweat  in  globules  shone  upon  His  breast ; 
His  nerved  right  arm  a  massive  hammer  swung. 

A  melody  in  harmony,  a  rest 
In  labor,  so  His  utterance  became  , 
A  sweetness  led  to  flow  in  fierv  flame. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  129 

3 

''Take  thou  no  thought,  but  in  the  Word  abide, 
For  so  shapes  throughness  in  thee  to  a  gift. 

Lift  thou  the  ponderous  truth,  to  life  applied, 
In  thy  small  way,  as  I  this  hammer  lift  : 

It  falls  to  break  the  iron-hearted  shell 

Of  ego,  in  whose  mass  the  Word-seed  dwell." 

4 

The  verse  rose  heaving  in  me,  as  full  rain 

Of  fire  when  thunderbolts  to  flame  are  beaten. — 

The  vision  changed  ;  I  saw  the  One-in-Twain, 

When  precious  wine  was  poured  and  viands  eaten. 

Twelve  men  of  labor,  crowned  with  garlands  gay, 

'Feasted  one-twain  as  wedded  lovers  may. 


Seen  as  the  Publican,  the  Lord  sat  there, 

Beaming,  on  hospitable  cares  intent ; 
With  Mother  Christa  in  a  twain-one  chair 

Of  wicker  work,  in  knots  and  garlands  bent ; 
But,  like  a  table  waitress  fair  to  view, 
A  daughter  served,  known  here  as  "  Lady  Sue." 

6 

Out  from  a  single  bowl  rolled  cups  and  dishes ; 

Forth  from  one  glass  the  crystal  goblets  wrought. 
One  fish  grew  on  the  board  to  twelve  twain  fishes ; 

One  loaf  to  twelve  came  forth  as  thoughts  from  thought. 
Then  the  Lord  smiled,  while  tenderly  he  spake, 
"  Ye  labor,  and  I  labor  for  your  sake. 
9 


130  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

7 

"  Wherever  twelve  as  ye  shall  sit  at  table 
In  the  new  time,  I  will  purvey  the  feast. 

They  who  subserve  shall  be  for  godness  able 
To  lead  new  vigors  to  the  lowest  least ; 

And  I  will  make  my  presence  in  the  wolds 

Of  earth  for  pleasances  and  for  strong-holds. 

8 

"So  We  shall  keep  the  labor  feast  in  sightiiess 
Of  such  as  ye  ;  for  joyance  meeting  them, 

To  lead  the  dance  by  feet  of  flying  lightness. 
I  am  the  Root  of  Labor,  and  the  stem 

Shall  from  me  rise  and  branch,  and  bear  increase 

Of  infants,  orbed  in  righteousness  and  peace." 


LXV. 


1 

Lord  Christus  claims  the  right  to  "  live  the  Life  " 
On  earth  ;  the  right  denied  to  Him  of  yore, 

Peace  and  good  will  to  all,  no  chain  or  strife. 
He  claims  the  freedom  of  the  planet's  floor, 

To  live  the  life,  to  breathe  unfettered  breath 

As  Man  in  man  :  such  is  the  word  He  saith. 

2 

Of  old  his  posture  was  below  mankind. 

Now  on  the  level  of  the  race  He  stands  ; 
In  the  equalities  would  be  enshrined  ; 

In  the  fraternities  would  fashion  hands. 
In  liberty,  for  liberties,  His  will 
Is  postured;  He  would  work  no  creature  ill.;'    •' 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  131 


3 

Let  whoso  live  who  holds  the  right  to  live ; 

Let  whoso  die  who  holds  the  cause  to  die. 
No  act  of  His  shall  any  man  deprive 

Of  aught  that  is  an  human  equity. 
Let  till  who  choose  of  independence  boast; 
He  seeks  no  rule  or  presence  in  their  host. 


Let  all  who  will  compete  ;  He  will  not  strive 
To  check  the  freedom  of  their  competition  ; 

Nor  touch  the  reins  their  purposes  to  drive  ; 

Nor  force  their  thought ;  but  hold  His  free  position 

In  simple  Manliness  ;  a  Citizen 

Of  the  republic,  seen  or  viewless  then. 


The  right  to  free  expression,  act  and  motion 
He  comes  to  claim ;  nor  will  assert  for  more. 

He  sought  mankind  by  purposeful  devotion; 
Now  men  must  seek  Him,  being  still  the  Door. 

To  live  the  life,  to  show  it  by  its  worth, 

For  this  He  imrnanates  to  human  earth. 


6 
Men  need  not  fear  for  an  authority  ; 

Nor  shall  authority  His  freedom  bind. 
Accepting  here  the  fact,  democracy, 

His  entrance  stirs  110  ripple  on  the  wind 
Of  their  free  motion  ;  He  but  aids  events 
That  fashion  in  the  movement  of  consents, 


132  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


7 

He  will  not  press  a  good  however  good ; 

Nor  jar  upon  an  ill  however  ill. 
Let  this  for  first  time  now  be  understood, 

He  comes  His  Social  Manhood  to  fulfill : 
He  does  not  move  in  cataclysmal  storm, 
But  as  the  sunbeam ; — let  who  will  be  warm. 


He  claims  the  right  to  form  association, 

As  He  with  those  who  draw  to  Him  shall  woo ; 

To  hold  estate,  to  serve  the  occupation, 
Doing  to  all  as  all  to  Him  should  do ; 

Seeking  thereby  to  cause  no  just  offense 

To  tribe  or  nation,  spirit,  mind  or  sense. 

9 

He  claims  the  right  that  Keely  has  besought, 
To  wake  etheric  force  by  timed  vibration ; 

The  right  that  Edison  has  almost  caught, 
To  lead  swift  ethers  to  illumination  ; 

The  right  that  held  Columbus  to  pursue 

And  on  the  old  world's  confines  twine  the  new. 


10 

He  has  no  dogma  to  defend  or  proffer  : 
Truth  must  from  life  to  evolution  flow. 

He  wrill  not  lavish  from  a  private  coffer 
Favors,  to  buy  as  those  who  bribes  bestow. 

The  third  dimension  opens  for  His  play ; 

He  enters  it  to  walk  His  four-fold  way. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  133 


11 

So  all  who  will  to  tread  the  path  with  Him 
May  move,  as  best  befits,  to  His  right  hand. — 

Turn  to  the  Right !  — earth-time  is  growing  dim  ; 
The  light  to  come  in  Him  will  o'er  them  stand. 

Away  the  foolish  babble,  paltry  strife ; 

Christ  comes  to  live  in  those  who  live  the  life. 


LXVI. 

1 

September's  balmy  lips  again  are  breathing, 
To  woo  the  sense,  from  odorous  retreats. 

Mild,  pensive  autumn  glides,  before  her  wreathing 
Cool,  dewy  vapors,  lost  in  lingering  heats. 

Entrancing  glances,  kisses  of  farewells, 

Touch  to  the  heart.     Departure  with  us  dwells. 


Now  hastes  the  close  of  Heaven's  industrial  year, 
That  with  the  rainy  equinox  began. 

In  fourth  dimensioned  ripeness  re-appear 
To  worded  sight  the  groves  of  Lilistan. 

In  a  grand  pleasure  park,  upon  its  mall, 

I  met  a  man,  last  of  the  twelve,  Saint  Paul. 

3 

"  Taste  of  my  fruit "  he  spake,  "  last  of  the  season  ; 

Upon  a  bough  of  Christ's  first  tree  it  hung." 
Sharp  acid  was  its  taste,  a  fruit  of  reason 

In  eloquence,  upon  the  lip  it  clung. 
I  answered,  joining  with  him  in  the  cheer, 
'  Taste  of  my  fruit,  the  first  of  Christ's  new  year.' 


134  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


4 

"  This  is  a  fruit  of  wisdom  in  conviction," 
Quoth  he  replying,  "ah!  it  holds  God's  wine, 

The  Bridegroom's  breath,  a  nuptial  benediction  : 
I  share  it  joyful  with  this  spouse  of  mine,": 

A  tall  bright  lady  youthful  as  nineteen, 

His  spouse  was  visioned,  stately,  grecian  seen. 

5 

He  wound  an  arm  around  her  lissome  waist, 
With  "  Phoebe  sweetest,  one-in-twain  we  are. 

Young  gospel,  love  is  exquisite  in  taste  ; 
Scriptured  are  you  in  Christa's  avatar." 

Her  wifely  thought  into  his  own  she  crost, 

Then  Paul  exclaimed  "Time  passes,  time  is  lost. 

6 

"The  power,  the  glory  and  the  majesty 

Of  Christ  Twain-One,  all  thought  of  time  excelling, 
Transposes  time ;  so  time  is  winged  to  fly 

Into  God's  bosom.     Ends  the  vague  foretelling :     u 
Now  shall  the  autumn  of  the  age  exhaust 
In  Spring's  new  rain,  first  imaged  as  white  frost," 


My  palm  he  touched  with  apostolic  fervor ; 

Trembled  as  virgins  on  the  delphic  seat; 
Spake,  "did  I  well,  in  Christ  our  God,  to  serve  Her 

The  Goddess  ;  worshiping  the  Paraclete?" 
One  mirrored  named  as  "Chloe,"  a  white  flame 
Of  wifely  womanhood,  a  pure  unshame. 


CONVERSATION     IN     HEAVEN.  135 

8 

She  breathed  upon  his  lips  to  leave  an  answer. 

Then  shone  his  eyes,  twin  stars  from  truth's  deep  well, 
"Did  I  conceive  of  Her  as  no  romancer? 

Wrought  She  into  my  thought  a  sacred  spell  ? 
Unto  my  simple  mind  did  She  incline, 
She  who  is  Grace  and  Graciousiiess  Divine  ?  " 

9 

Chloe  began,  "  Paul-Paula,  brother-sister/' 
But  Phoebe  spake,  "the  Comfortless  impoured 

Through  Ghloe's  faithfulness  ;  our  Paulus  kissed  Her, 
The  Mother,  sprinkled  from  the  Bridal  Word. 

In  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  then  " 

He  wrought  Her  scripture,  though 'with  failing  pen. 

10 

"  Grace,  grace  his  theme,  led  from  our  Gracious  Lady ; 

His  was  the  grecian  in  the  Jewish  ear."  — 
The  three  upon  my  sight  grew  dim  and  shady  ; 

More  hence  was  said  that  is  untimely  here. 
Smile,  kind  September  :  where  thy  footsteps  fall 
Angels  glide  in  thee,  Paula  and  her  Paul. 


LXVIL 

1 

I  met  a  shaker  priestess,  Anna  Girling, 
Met  in  a  shadowed  glen  below  our  mall ; 

She  was  indulging  in  a  pious  whirling, 

Watched  prudently  by  Paula  one  with  Paul. 

She  gave  a  recognizing  glance,  with  "you 

Say  that  the  angels  all  are  one  in  two. 


130  CONVERSATION    IN    &EAVEN. 


"Nay,  nay,  Christ  is  our  bridegroom,  sole  and  purely 

He  is  contained  within  my  holy  roll ; 
In  it  I  feel  his  presence  near  and  hourly, 

The  sacred  spouse,  the  lover  of  my  soul. 
So  all  the  sister  spirits  with  me  tell, 
That  he  their  precious  bridegroom  is  as  well." 

3 

Oddly,  there  stepped  anigh  a  shaker  Elder, 
Drew  a  long  sigh  :  she  called  him  by  a  name, 

And,  when  into  his  glance  he  drew  and  held  her, 
A  smoldering  fire  within  them  broke  to  flame. 

Again  the  whirl,  but  now  with  hands  that  crost 

And  feet  that  flew,  til  from  them  shone  white  frost. 

4 

The  cold  of  celibacy,  in  them  nursed 

By  chill  religion  whilst  their  time  held  years, 

Lay  as  dull  snow  upon  their  flesh ;  dispersed 
To  icy  vapor,  flowed  to  faints  and  fears  ; 

But  each,  the  other  holding  so  to  cling, 

From  Paula-Paul  drew  kindly  comforting. 

5      ' 

They  touched  each  other's  fingers  as  to  feel, 

But  timidly  with  ague  pains  forlore  ; 
Till  the  good  shaker  turned  upon  his  heel, 

Turned  full  from  Anna  and  his  garment  tore, 
Crying,  "  I  testify ;  the  feel  I  had 
Affirms  within  me;  woman,  you  are  bad/' 


ME  A  v  EN.  137 


She  rose  indignant,  with  the  tart  reply, 

"Nay,  nay!  'tis  Christ  within  me  doth  affirm 

That  thou  art  given  to  believe  a  lie, 
And  verily  a  servant  of  the  worm. 

Did  I  know  somewhat  of  a  man  or  two  ? 

Begone,  I  testify,  I  spit  on  you." 


So  after  "testifying"  both  sat  down, 

Panting,  exhausted  by  such  verbal  pass. 

The  elder,  looking  with  a  piteous  frown, 
Austerely  droned,  "  yea,  yea,  I  loved  a  lass. 

Somewhat  in  you  recalled  the  thought  of  her, 

And  then  old  Adam  in  me  'gan  to  stir." 

8 

Paul  queried  of  him,  "  was  it  not  New  Adam  ? 

Did  you  not  feel  to  her  as.  pure  young  Eve?" 
Both  rose,  addressed  first  time  as  "Sir"  and  "Madam,3 

As  gentleman  and  lady  who  receive, 
Till  Anna,  like  a  conscious  maid  from  school, 
Colored  and  sighed,  then  spake,  "I  am  a  fool. 

9 

"I  knew  you,  from  the  first,  for  just  the  picture 
Of  my  dear  bridegroom  in  the  holy  roll, 

And  loved  and  dreaded,  with  a  joyous  mixture 
Of  feelings  almost  past  my  heart's  control." — 

"  Love  one  another,"  doves  awoke  to  coo 

From  Paula's  bosom,  "  sweetest,  I  love  you*" 


138  c  o  N  V  &&  s  A  T  i  o  N  IN  HE  A  v  E  N 


LXVIII, 


Eternities  in  times  unite  for  us, 

To  lead  the  spectacle  that  rounds  the  play. 

I  saw  the  star  of  stars  that  fights  for  us, 
Orb  Jupiter,  as  eyes  inworded  may. 

One  of  that  planet's,  heaven  drew  kindly  near, 

By  respiration  led  to  brain  from  ear. 

2 

Hero  and  poet,  priest  and  archimage, 
Four-fold  his  aspect,  man  of  many  feels. 

Through  the  prone  shadows  of  earth's  mortal  age, 
A  splendor  motioned  from  him,  wheels  in  wheels 

Of  winged  thoughts ;  the  thoughts  to  me  became 

As  flying  cherubs,  orbed  in  solar  flame. 

-,:'-'.  :3   .  - 

Four  men  stood  with  me- by  an  interbreath, 
.Paul/ Peter,  James  and  John  :  formed  to  .unite, 
We  met  the  vision,  not  as  from  beneath, 

But  on  the  level  of  transposive  sight. 
Thus  holding,  eye  to  eye,  at  one  with  them, 
John  spake,  "this  place  is  New  Jerusalem. 

4 

"  To  priesthood,  kingship,  scienthood  and  song 
The  inspirations  of  the  Life  converge." 

Paul  spake,  "to  four-fold  ladyhoods  belong 
The  leading  powers  that  for  the  gifts  emerge. 

The  Gracious  Lady  holds,  the  bands  between  ; 

Through  Her  the  star  that  heralds  day  is  seen." 


CONVERSATION    IN   HEAVEN.  139 


Spake  Peter,  "lo!  She  is  the  Shepherdess, 
And  all  the  stars  of  heaven  are  in  Her  flock. 

I  touch  the  key-note  of  Her  holiness  ; 
Then  doors  of  New  Jerusalem  unlock 

To  sacred  entrances,  divine  arcades  : 

Her  palace  there  is  in  Her  white  robed  maids." 

6 

Spake  James,  "  and  priests  with  jewelled  garments  clothen." 
"And  poets  chanting  blithely,"  spake  Saint  John; 

"Their  vestures  all  in  melody  are  woven  : 

As  to  their  brows,  the  white  dove  plumes  thereon, 

And  lips  are  sweet,  impassioned  to  bestow 

Songs  in  the  Mother's  praise  from  LilimoV 


"  Imputed  to  them  all  such  righteousness," 

Spake  Paul ;  "it  is  the  Lord's,  thus  made  their  own. 

To  Her  in  Him  assimilate,  they  press 
The  lips  of  holiness  for  blessings  known. 

'Tis  wrought  to  form  and  fill  and  flow  and  fall; 

The  Bridegroom's  marriage  robe  enfolding  all." 

.,,..-•       . :    •  :  •     \»-« is .;i;.> . '•       •    .    .  ;  .    .•'':       . ;  ; 

8 
"Blessed  are  they,"  spake  four  in  one  together, 

"Who  to  the  marriage  feast  of  Christ  are  led."— 
Through  the  dim  haze  of  time,  its  closing  weather, 

The  palpitating  airs  of  heaven  are  fed; 
Breathing  to  hearts  that  for  Him  yearn  the  most 
Far  whisperings  of  the  apostolic  host. 


146  CONVERSATION     itf     HEAVEN. 


LXIX. 


1 

The  planet  mellows  like  a  fallen  fruit ; 

Nature's  last  ripeness  presses  on  mankind ; 
The  year  holds  many  years  in  swift  pursuit, 

All  urging  on  the  final  goal  to  find. 
All  human  lives,  around  the  orb  that  spin, 
Weave  narrowing  circles :  time  is  folding  in. 


Note  the  massed  fishes  crowded  in  a  seine ; 

Nearing  the  beach  they  rush  to  'scape  the  net. 
Minds  whom  the  thirdnesses  of  space  restrain 

Make  frantic  toil  to  burst  the  billowing  fret. 
Men  as  the  captive  fish  are  caught  in  fear, 
Or  insects  when  hoar  frost  invades  the  year. 

3 

3Tis  not  the  shapen  thought,  'tis  thought  unshapen 
That  holds  the  mortal  situation  now. 

That  which  men  vaguely  feel  is  Visitation ; 
A  moving  Future,  vailed  from  feet  to  brow, 

Whose  bosom  palpitates  to  thrill  the  air 

Of  the  world's  thought,  urging  by  tremors  there. 

4 

Faiths,  finances  and  morals  are  afloat : 

Legends,  laws,  ligatures  are  failed  or  failing ;     . 

Fierce  war-hawks  whirling  o'er  the  mortal  cote, 
And  hungry  sharks  anear  the  swimmer  sailing. 

Butchers  are  rulers  o'er  the  wattled  folds, 

And  anarchy  a-foot  in  the  strong-holds. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  141 


Time's  Giant  feels  to  shake  his  prison  doors, — 
The  fierce  flame-giant  of  Democracy. 

'Tis  not  the  human  voice,  a  tempest  roars. 
Peoples  that  are  not  peoples,  but  a  sea 

Of  hungers,  furies,  whetted  fangs  in  fears, 

Would  riot  in  a  ruin  that  anears. 

6 

Ah  me  !  what  shouts  of  maddened  indignation 
Ascend  for  antichrist's  millennial  reign ; 

Sin's  ignomy  ;  the  impious  desecration 
Of  Freedom,  trampling  order  in  disdain  ; 

The  carnival  of  ego,  free  to  swing, 

With  Lust  for  queen  and  Violence  for  king. 


'Tis  this  or  that ;  the  mortal  ego  lifted, 
All  good  to  smite,  all  evil  to  uprear ; 

Or  else  the  Holy  City,  deathless,  gifted 
Four-fold  in  grace  of  godness  to  appear. 

Man  cannot  cleave  the  mesh  with  gordian  knife ; 

All  waits  upon  the  coming  of  the  Life. 


LXX. 

1 

The  mystery  of  Woman's  life  is  deep. 

A  flowing  ocean,  azure,  crystalline, 
She  holds  the  sanctity  of  Christ  to  keep, 

Since  in  her  heart  of  hearts  is  Christa's  shrine. 
The  rose  of  her  pure  holiness  adorns 
His  bosom  who  for  her  was  crowned  with  thorns. 


142  C  O  N  V  E  B  S  A  T  I O  N    I  N    H  E  A  V  E  N  . 


2 

I  touched  a  lady's  finger,  that  she  gave, 
In  a  small  nook  of  Lady  Yessa's  bowers. 

Her  presence  rose  upon  me  as  a  wave 

From  the  inflowing  sea;  her  breasts  were  towers! 

Espoused  to  Christ?  I  knew  it  by  the  ring 

She  held  to  meet  my  sight,  thus  ;  'witnessing. 


A  winged  whiteness,  snowy  swan  of  swans, 
She  billowed  on  the  air-way  for  the  sight.   ;r; 

Twas  thus  I  met  the  Maid  of  Orleans  ; 

She  who  won  France  to  freedom,  by  the  might 

Of  God-force*  when  the  land  was  torn  apart, 

And  Britain  ruled  from  battle-field  to  mart. 


. 

But  thereupon  t\velye  mighty  men  of  valor      ?  ./* 
Encompassed.  her  •  here  is  a  truth  for  us;     • 

Wheraa^  ^jje.moved  enshrined  in  :  sacred  pallor,  ,  , 
They,  for  the  gra<?e  that  flowed,  shone  glorio^s^.- 

Such  maid  of  Christ  infuses  through  the  host, 

By  fiery  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

5 

Yet  for  such  worth  she  drank  the  bitter  draught. 

The  price  she  paid  was  martyrdorn,  the  stake, 
The  curling  flame  r'  noting  my  thought  she  laughed 

Shdo'kyas  from  bosomed  swan,  a  floating  flake, 
That  held  her  answer  drifting  to  -mine  eyesj 
"  Warm;  "hearted  woman  triumphs  when  she  dies.J? 


C  0  N  V  E  R  S  A  T  I  O  N    I  N     H  E  A  V  E  N  .  T4:3 


Strange  if  an  inspiration  should  defeat 

Its  final  purposes,  when  led  a-field 
By  heroism  in  the  bravest  sweet. 

Strange  that  the  victress  should  as  victim  yield 
Her  sacred  flesh,  to  feed  the  fiery  thirst 
Of  enmities,  that  Wrought  their  last  and  worst  ; 


But  stranger  that  a  simple  peasant  maid 
Should  lift  a  nation  from  its  ruining..  •*•  ...  . 

'Twas  Grace,,  in  lowly  wpmanhood  arrayed ; 
'Twas  Liberty,  in  her  upon  the  wing ; 

The  Goddess  of  the  people  kindling  sor    ,    ; 

Through  midnight,  for  the  future's  coming  glow. ,:-4 


For  Judgment  on  a  land's  despoilers  then, 
Whilst  Christendom  lay  in  its  deepest  dark, 

The  Mother  led,  four-folding  iiito1  men  :T; 
This  is  the  mystery  of  Jeanne  d*Arc  ; 

Whereby  Shte  wrought 'in  battles^  for  the  way? 

Oif'the  deliverance,  ere  yet  was  "day: 


9 

Judgment  looks  far  before  i'fhxni  s«ch  despoile^rsi: 
Old  Europe'^  woman  la?rrd  i?<>se;  liberate,      r*  .n 

That  fires  might  breed ^to  leap  thfoaighismitte 
To:  Revolution  for; theil^openidg  gate;^  nior?  ^ 

The  Maid  of  Orleans  ^w'afc  who  touched  the  key, 

That  led  the  People's  rise  in  ^ninety  three.'.'..  .:^ 


144  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN 


LXXL 


1 

Think  four-fold  to  the  east,  west,  north  and  south ; 

Wisdom  is  in  us  now  for  sight  grown  free. 
The  bosom  of  the  race  is  parched  with  drouth ; 

Man  shapes  a  desert  where  he  held  a  sea. 
His  poor  remains  of  life  are  whirled  in  storms, 
Through  broken  structures,  desiccated  forms. 

2 

The  flowing  Truth  his  breast  would  not  retain  ; 

His  natural  sense  the  breathing  Word  repels  ; 
The  vital  current  shows  but  through  a  stain, 

Hues,  colors  vaguely  on  his  vacuous  shells. 
Truth,  for  the  ages  flowing  to  mankind, 
Ceases  :  it  leaves  the  arid  self  behind. 

3 

Now,  pressing  on  where  flying  Truth  has  fled, 
Leave  the  dry  wilderness ;  pursue  the  flight. 

Rise  to  clear  consciousness  by  Wisdom  led ; 

Find  the  new  stand-place  formed  in  upper  light. 

Look  four-fold  east,  west,  north  and  southward  ;  here 

In  Heaven's  full  bosom,  lo !  what  floods  appear. 


The  desiccated  earth-air  led  dejection  ; 

Fear,  apathy  and  languor  wove  and  spun, 
Till  God-thought  failed  into  a  recollection, 

And  morn  seemed  but  dead  morn  and  dying  sun. 
The  desert  heat  grew  on  us,  till  it  lay, 
A  death-mask,  on  the  face  of  living  day. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  145 


I  met  a  Sentinel,  upon  the  brink 

Of  the  etherlc  heaven's  o'erfolding  sphere. 

He  greeted  with  an  hearty  "have  to  drink " ; 
Touched  for  a  water-flow  led  through  the  ear. 

The  feel  of  bubbling  waters  in  the  brain 

Revived  me,  Worded  thought  was  free  again. 

6 

"  In  what  malarious  element  ye  wade, 
Ye  who  bear  witness  in  a  time  forlorn"  : 

Spake  the  wise  Warder,  smiting  to  a  shade  ; 
Smiting  by  sound  as  from  a  battle  horn. 

A  grim,  gaunt,  grisly  image  for  His  blows 

Broke,  crumbled ;  through  its  dust  a  wraith  arose, 


Who,  clinging  to  my  outer  vail,  had  risen 
To  form  upon  me  and  to  fetter  down, 

That  so  my  life  might  to  his  greeds  be  given. 
His  visage  faced  me  with  a  fearful  frown. 

I  made  to  stoop  and  lift  him,  by  a  thrill 

Of  force  in  kindness,  but  I  met  a  chill, 

8 

Cold,  cold  in  venom :  stumbling  to  the  feet 

He  gasped  affrighted  ;  drew  his  brow  to  mine  ; 

Sought  by  paralysis  my  touch  to  meet ; 

Sought  by  entanglements  its  force  to  twine ; 

Failed,  flung  his  form  below  the  " astral  plane"; 

To  his  own  kind  whirled  in  an  hurricane, 
10 


146  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


9 

"  Yea,  suffer  it  to  be  so  now, "  One  spake. 

"  I  as  the  Sentinel  this  gateway  keep. 
Ye  sought  to  help  that  man  for  my  dear  sake ; 

Thinking,  so  doing,  'twas  to  feed  my  sheep. 
So  he  had  fastened  on  your  skirts,  to  fill 
His  wasting  essence  from  your  kind  good  will. " 

10 

Afterward,  through  such  "  Door,"  I  found  a  space, 
With  twelve  who  guard  the  access  from  the  deep. 

Paul,  Peter,  James  and  John  again  made  place, 
In  a  strong  fortress  named  as  "  Never  sleep  "  : 

Thence  One  through  them,  with  ever  thoughtful  eyes 

O'erwatches  where  the  danger-path  implies. 

11 

'Tis  hard,  'tis  desperate  hard  to  hold  the  foot, 
Encountering  men  of  craft  and  avarice, 

Who  seek  the  confidence  intent  on  "loot," 
As  Christ  show  fashion  but  as  Judas  kiss. 

'Tis  hard  to  part  the  last  loaf  on  the  board, 

Lost  from  Christ's  poor  to  swell  the  traitor's  hoard. 

12 

"  Yea,  suffer  it  to  be  so  now" :  such  gifts 
Hold  Judgment  in  them,  sure  to  overthrow. 

The  bread  is  cast  abroad  upon  the  drifts, 

To  rise  for  harvest  through  dissolving  snow. — 

I  heard  a  Voice,  a  twelve-one  carol  heard ; 

Song  thrilled  my  bosom  from  the  Bridal  Word. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  147 


13 

Twelve  ladies,  brides  of  the  apostles  they, 
Rocked  in  a  pleasure  harge  upon  a  stream, 

Or  sported  where  white  water  lilies  lay, 
And  winged  water-babes  rose  in  the  gleam 

Of  God-light  from  the  east,  and  showered  them. 

John  spake,  "  such  too  is  New  Jerusalem. " 

14 

"Pray  to  the  Lord,  but  keep  the  powder  dry" ; 

Ever  the  shrewd  Cromwellian  charge  we  hold. 
The  inner  eye  relieves  the  outer  eye, 

For  watchfulness  when  wearied  sense  must  fold. 
Slept  the  tired  watchers  in  that  night  of  doom, 
When  Christ,  our  Sunrise,  shadowed  for  the  tomb  ? 

15 

Now  they  keep  watch,  whilst  He,  within  them,  guards 
By  Truth  that  never  falters,  never  sleeps ; 

Till  Guile's  defenses  fall  as  broken  shards, 
And  its  proud  cities  lie  in  pathless  heaps. 

O'er  time's  gethsemane  the  shades  descend ; 

Here  is  our  watch,  till  God-rise  leads  the  end. 


LXXII. 

1 

Where  we  advance  to  thread  the  obscuration, 
All  the  wild  glamour  of  the  past  makes  head  ; 

Shaping  the  complex  of  civilization  ; 
Involving  life  in  cerements  of  the  dead. 

Truth  shows  as  falseness,  falsehood  plumes  as  true ; 

Impetuous  ego  storms  and  ravins  through, 


148  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


2 

Did  we  dare  sleep,  the  hours  by  death  were  numbered ; 

Did  we  dare  pause,  the  desert  o'er  us  drive. 
Did  we  dare  house,  by  mortal  ties  encumbered, 

To  hornet's  nest  would  change  the  ravished  hive. 
We  can  but  watch  ;  holding  in  storm  by  calm, 
A  brooding  kindliness,  a  breathing  balm. 


I  met  the  Prophet  of  the  "Lamentations," 
He  who  saw  Israel  chained  by  Babylon. 

Clad  in  a  Word-robe  of  illuminations, 

He  broke  a  roll  with  me  and  fed  thereon ; 

Then  gave  me  of  it  and  it  tasted  well ; 

I  fed  on  bread  of  God  for  Israel. 

4 

Yet,  for  the  bread,  the  belly  flowed  with  water, 
And  this  again  was  nectar  in  the  veins ; 

But  Jeremiah  stood  in  vails  of  slaughter, 
Stood  prophesying,  and  he  told  of  rains. 

Full  Truth  by  flood  was  on  him,  and  his  theme 

Surged  on  as  one  who  battles  with  the  stream. 

5 

But  after  this  a  mild,  sweet  genius  came, 
All  as  a  zephyr  of  translucent  air, 

And  touched  him  to  the  navel ;  then  the  name 
Of  Helios-Christus  spake  as  from  him  there  ; 

Till  upwardly  his  breasts  grew  summer  red, 

To  tropic  heats  by  respirations  wed. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  149 


6         . 

And  he  was  borne  in  breathings  upwardly, 
To  pass  through  Yessa's  gardens  to  a  glade, 

Where  the  LORD  GOD  stood  in  the  galaxy, 
And  voiceful  constellations  to  Him  made 

A  song  of  evolution,  and  a  whirl 

That  winged  young  paradises  to  unfurl. 


And  he  was  caught  into  the  song,  and  dipped 
His  vails  of  slaughter  in  a  milky  flow, 

And  his  breast  opened  ;  but  a  Lady  slipped, 
To  fold  Him  in  Her  whiteness,  and  to  glow 

Upon  him  in  a  radiance  of  full  bloom : 

She  cleft,  She  whirled  him  in  a  pleasure  stroom, 


"  She  is  the  Sephira, "  spake  he  enafter, 
"  She  who  is  hidden  in  the  name  of  Yod. 

She  is  the  Song  of  Wisdom  and  the  Laughter, 
The  Gladness  of  the  gladnesses  of  God." 

Hearing  his  voice,  twelve  prophets,  born  again 

To  Israel,  bowed  their  heads  and  breathed  "amen!" 

9 

The  prophesyings  of  the  prophets  end  ; 

The  seeings  of  the  seers  are  interwoven 
Through  the  transcendent  ages  that  foretend ; 

So  are  their  eyes  for  new-timed  God-light  cloven. 
The  vails  of  the  shekinah  burn  ;  they  part ; 
Show  God  One-Twain,  Man -Woman,  heart  in  heart. 


150  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


LXXIII. 


1 

Down  looking  from  the  nigh  Etheric  Heaven, 
To  Earth  that  in  dense  proprium-vapor  swims, 

A  Worded  sight  is  for  perception  given  ; 
One  views  the  masses  but  as  manikins ; 

Whilst  here  and  there  a  suffering  human  face 

Glows  through  the  death-mist,  lit  by  heavenly  grace. 

2 

The  power  of  hold  is  that  which  characters 
These  few  amid  the  many ;  'tis  the  grip 

On  the  divineness  ;  His  the  soul  that  stirs 

Through  the  formed  frame  for  godly  fellowship, 

Doing  its  utmost  best  to  force  a  way 

For  human  uprightness  by  night  and  day. 

3 

I  saw  an  Ancient  of  time's  golden  age, 

Translated  there  ;  holding  the  planet's  youth 

In  good  remembrance ;  he  its  mortal  page 

Searching  to  find  the  holding-ground  of  Truth, 

The  base  in  organism,  that  retains 

The  grace  of  God  in  structures  of  remains. 


He  drew  my  searching  mind  with  his  to  fuse ; 

Then  I  saw  many  holding  to  a  law 
Of  honor  in  their  hearts,  a  law  of  use, 

That  in  them  breeds  a  searchfulness,  to  draw 
The  mind  into  a  secret  watch  and  ward, 
That  thought  and  action  may  with  right  accord. 


CONVERSATION    IN   HEAVEN.  151. 


5 

Over  all  such  a  light  was  visible ; 

But  a  magnetic  darkness  o'er  the  rest, 
That  flowed  the  mortal  mind  and  sense  to  fill, 

And  generate  within  the  breeding  breast 
Swarms  of  imperious  purposes,  designs, 
Drawn  into  winged  reptiles  by  their  lines. 

6 

The  world  that  is,  the  world  that  vails  in  schism, 
Sundered  in  motion  from  the  heavenly  host, 

Must  perish  when  the  foul,  black  magnetism 
Flushes  its  continent  and  floods  its  coast. 

"The  wage  of  sin  is  death,"  and  death  in-urns 

When*  the  magnetic  flow  to  ashes  burns. 

7 

Hence  comes  the  instantaneous  conflagration. 

The  opportune  that  hastes  on  Judgment  waits : 
By  the  attraction  of  association, 

Heaven-life  in  mind-stuff  so  She  re-instates. 
The  magnetism  bred  by  mortal  ills 
Wastes,  leaving  vacuum  ;  this  with  life  She  fills. 


8 

Beamed  the  gold  Ancient,  drew  a  touch  to  mine, — 
Touch  to  my  heart,  that  answered  by  a  pang. 

A  thought  found  utterance,  a  thought  divine, 
Led  through  the  ear  as  if  a  clarion  rang  ; 

Then  through  his  form  a  milk-white  vapor  rolled 

That  colored  on  him  as  enrobing  gold. 


152  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

9 

The  vapor  that  shall  clothe  the  air,  and  span 
The  planet,  when  its  magnetisms  meet 

The  Worded  fire,  and  that  which  seems  as  man 
But  is  not,  is  dissolved  in  fervent  heat, 

Is  folded  in  such  man  as  met  mine  eyes ; 

The  Golden  Folk  of  Time's  lost  paradise. 


LXXIV. 

1 

Men  will  survive  by  openings  in  the  ear, 
The  brain  held  in  etheric  emanation ; 

Old  thoughts  of  thirdness,  thoughts  of  chill  and  fear, 
Led  by  a  vaporous  wave  to  dissipation ;          t 

Then,  through  the  auditory  nerves  a-glow, 

Songs  without  words,  life  songs  of  Lilimo'. 

2 

"Touch  to  my  instep ;"  spake  the  round  white  girl, 
Known  four-fold,  "Daughter,  Issa,  Lily,  Sue." 

I  touched  with  reverence,  felt  white  vapors  curl. 
She  stood  four-fold  from  c6ronet  to  shoe, 

Robed  as  the  stately  woman  of  the  sea, 

Air,  vapor,  flame  in  flowing  melody. 

3 

"Men  shall  survive  by  chastities  divine/' 

Spake  she,  "the  consummation  of  the  third. — 

Nay,  hold  in  nuptial  troth  thy  heart  to  mine, 
For  thou  must  in  our  union  find  the  Word. 

Men  shall  survive  who  feel,  as  thou  dost  feel, 

The  Goddess  by  the  woman's  touch  reveal ; 


V^RSATlOtf    IN    ttfiAVEK,  153 


4 

"  Men  who  revere  the  sacred  virginal  ; 

Men  who  abhor  the  sexual  profanation  ; 
Men  who  think  godness  to  the  terminal  ; 

Who  elevate  the  host  in  consummation  ; 
Men  who  adore  the  Goddess,  though  afar, 
And  thrill  through  all  sensation  to  Her  star. 

5 

"To  such,  to  such,  the  Bridal  Word  is  given, 
Rock,  temple,  column,  altar  and  defense. 

In  the  great  hour  their  bodies  will  inheaven  ; 
Their  silent  thought  be  worlded  eloquence. 

Dawn  shall  be  on  their  foreheads,  for  the  light 

Of  the  new  time  ;  their  lives  into  it  plight. 

6 

u  Stay  :  —  as  our  Mother  rounds  the  work  complete, 

She  will  destroy  unchastity  forever. 
She  will  efface  the  worthless  and  effete  ; 

No  breast  survive  but  as  'tis  made  Her  mirror. 
So  they  who  look  from  breast  to  breast  behold 
Her  Worded  futures,  twain-in-one,  unfold." 


LXXV. 

1 

Fox  rediscovered  Christianity ; 

Its  force  within  him  broke  false  ego's  might ; 
So  through  sectarian  profanity 

Shone  the  twain  truths,  Christ  and  the  inner  light. 
Awe-stricken,  plain,  sweet,  simple,  godly  man, 
Etheric  rhythms  through  his  being  ran. 


154  CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN. 


2 

He  was  a  Voice  in  time's  dim  wilderness ; 

John  Baptist,  not  of  water  but  of  fire. 
The  Living  Christ  in  him  he  dared  confess, 

Clad  in  such  leathern  garment  for  attire. 
Kingly  in  priestliness,  nor  house  nor  lands 
Were  his. — A  kingdom  fashioned  to  his  hands. 

3 

Through  him  the  Worded  fourth  dimension  pointed 

A  shaft  of  regal  fire,  to  penetrate 
Where  Britain's  ancient  wile,  disrupt,  disjointed, 

Gave  opening  for  the  mightier  births  of  fate. 
The  concept  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  his  brain 
Wrestled  for  birth,  but  here  in  mortal  pain. 

4 

He  sought  to  organize  a  People  here ; 

A  royal  people,  priestly  in  the  Lord. — 
View  to  the  upward  :  see  that  kingdom  near, 

A  realm  where  twain-one  unities  achord. 
A  little  one  of  Peoples,  grown  full  strong, 
It  multiplies  three  centuries  along. 

5 

There  gathered  England's  brightest,  bravest,  best, 
Baptized  into  the  concept  of  the  Friend. 

George  Fox,  the  pivot  chief,  by  worded  hest, 
Led  forth  Christ's  bridal  order  to  its  end. 

On  earth  the  germ  rose  from  the  Lord  its  root : 

Now  'tis  a  tree  of  heaven  in  ripened  fruit. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  155 


6 

Enter  that  kingdom,  by  the  mind's  transfusion  ; 

Breathe,  by  love's  faith,  its  mild  and  friendly  airs ; 
Withdraw  into  the  silent,  sweet  seclusion ; 

See  to  what  futures  grew  the  toils  and  cares. 
The  "  Inner  Light/'  lo !  it  endiadems 
Over  a  nobler  London  of  the  Thames. 


LXXVI. 

1 

George  Fox  the  quaker,  now  Fidelius  Rex, 

In  the  illuminated  brethren  thrones, 
Holding  for  gifts  of  state  :  see  who  bedecks 

Such  royalty  with  beauty ;  who  intones 
His  life  in  woman-song ;  so  glimpse,  between 
The  curtained  lines,  Fidelia  the  queen. 

2 

House  of  the  thousand  windows  fronteth  east, 

West,  north  and  south,  with  precious  stones  inlaid. 

Music  of  sacred  lady  bands,  released 

In  billowy  flights  of  doves,  such  voicings  made 

As  those  who  heard,  enraptured  by  the  hymn, 

Might  call  "  the  song  of  choiring  cherubim." 

3 

Here  I  met  Shakspeare,  and  another  one, 
A  joyful  guest  from  mortal  thrall  set  free. 

Twas  good  to  greet  dear  poet  Tennyson 

In  such  blithe  realm,  in  such  brave  company. 

Each  wore  such  favors,  wreaths  of  the  white  rose, 

As  royalty  unto  its  guest  bestows. 


156  CONVERSATION    IN    ItEAVEN. 

4 

And  Tennyson  smiled  cognizant  of  me, 
For  I  had  stood  beside  his  passing  bed  ; 

With  him  upon  the  bar  and  out  at  sea ; 

With  him  thereafter,  when  the  lights  were  led 

Into  his  vision,  and  the  Lord  Twain-One 

Dawned  on  him  in  a  music  of  the  sun. 


A  winged  one,  a  radiant  Ariel 

With  message  from  more  kingly  Prospero, 
Hovered  in  air,  and,  from  a  dew-lipped  shell, 

Poured  language  that  was  melody  in  flow  : 
It  broke  as  if  from  diamonded  rains 
Fell  flowers,  dissolved  to  odors  in  the  veins. 

6 

So  through  the  guest  house  we  were  led,  to  enter 

A  lyric  hall  therein,  built  temple-wise, 
Wherein  the  four-fold  wa}rs  to  one  concenter ; 

The  path  of  Wisdom  in  her  poesies  ; 
But  in  it,  for  its  glory,  shone  a  Grace 
In  Holiness,  the  Lady  of  the  place. 

7 

Four-fold  her  presence  ;  four-fold  choirs,  bride-maiden, 
Forth  from  Her  bosom  led  by  four-fold  ways, 

And  cherub  boys  and  girls  with  garlands  laden 
Wreathed  us  divinely.     To  the  Mother  praise  ! 

The  glory  and  the  loveliness  and  might 

Of  Her  Pure  Womanly  was  made  delight. 


C  O  N  V  E  R  S  A  T  I  O  N    I  N    H  E  A  V  E  N  .  157 


8 

In  that  delight  we  rested,  there  to  taste 
The  fare  of  king  Fidelias  :  being  brought 

To  a  round  table,  one  named  "  Neverwaste," 
A  chaplain  of  the  court,  good  joy  besought, 

And  we  were  feasted  on  such  royal  cheer 

As  poets  find,  greeting  the  Lord's  new  year. 


LXXVII. 


Fraud  hounds  upon  the  track  of  miracle. 

Sincerity  is  chased  by  simulation. 
Genius,  conceiving  of  the  Beautiful, 

Is  mimicked  by  the  fraudful  imitation. 
Fiction  through  all  the  winds  of  faith  finds  flight. 
Wrong  wrongs,  in  fatuous  images  of  Right. 


The  antichrists  rise  in  the  path  of  Christ. 

The  dragon's  jaws  close  on  the  Golden  Child. 
Where  Inspiration  knew  and  improvised, 

Cold  Calculation  hammered,  smoothed  and  filed, 
To  shape  false  images  of  God,  and  space 
Falsehood's  imposture  in  the  holy  place. 

3 

Betrayers,  robed  as  angels  of  the  light, 
Prove  thus  deceivers  of  the  Word's  elect ; 

So  the  plumed  satans  urge  a  devious  flight ; 
So  pretence  mirrors  on  from  sect  to  sect. 

So  the  endeared  Society  of  Friends 

In  Orthodox  and  Hicksite  seeming  ends. 


158  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


Spake  king  Fidelius,  breathing  to  mine  ear, 
"  A  seed  of  God  remains  in  Mammon's  seat. 

There  are  two  caverns  and  a  single  fear : 

Through  them  faint  echoes  of  the  Word  repeat, 

As  sounds  from  mountains,  creeping  through  the  dales, 

Whelmed  in  reverberation  that  prevails. 


"  Could  I  but  clothe  in  mine  old  leathern  skin, 
And,  speaking  as  the  Spirit  moves,  affirm, 

Ears  would  withdraw,  as  from  a  speech  of  sin, 
And  flying  dove  would  seem  a  stinging  worm. 

By  times,  forms,  tongues  and  customs  fall  apart, 

As  drop  the  petals  when  the  germ  takes  heart. 

6 

"  Against  the  steeple  houses  did  I  grieve  ? 

Here  in  the  heaven  of  Friends  cathedrals  show, 
And^godly  bishops  to  the  rites  achieve 

That  terrified  my  simple  mind  below. 
As  when  the  royal  sun  for  day  comes  forth, 
Robed  in  red  gold  and  purple  o'er  the  earth, 

7 

"  Thus  priests  on  Lady's  day  pontificate, 

While  on  the  other  days  they  make  good  cheer : 

The  holy  eucharist  they  celebrate, 

For  the  transubstantiations,  that  endear 

God  to  the  people,  as  the  bread  and  wine 

Upon  the  common  board  hold  worths  divine. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  159 


"  So  there  are  singing  women,  singing  men, 
And  those  who  play  upon  the  keys  and  strings. 

The  inner  light  is  outer  lightened,  when 

The  Word-song  fills  the  common  worshipings. 

Great  are  our  joys,  but  richly  they  increase, 

When  life  to  its  full  ritual  finds  release. 


9 

"  Five  days  there  are  for  us  in  place  of  seven  : 

The  first  is  Lord's  day  ;  then  our  mights  are  first ; 

New  forces  to  great  industries  are  given  ; 
New  inspirations  flow,  divinely  nursed. 

The  realm,  as  ever  by  conceptual  plan, 

Stands  in  Christ's  Manhood  as  the  working  man. 

10 

"  The  last  day  of  our  week  is  Lady's  day  : 

'Tis  then  the  realm  postures  in  love's  repose. 

The  Bride,  the  Spouse,  the  Mother  in  display 
Withdraws  us  to  the  stillness,  to  disclose 

Beauties  of  holiness  from  bride  to  bride  : 

Face  to  Her  face  the  land  is  glorified. 

11 

"  'Tis  all  in  Christ;  all  in  the  inner  light; 

Old  self  abolished  ;  serpent  lost  in  dove. 
Friends  unto  friends  to  common  ends  unite ; 

The  wisest  of  the  land  bear  rule  whereof 
Their  special  gifts  may  testify ;  so  all 
Dwell  in  one  equity ;  so  none  in  thrall. 


160  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

12 

"  Doth  it  not  strike  thee,  Christ  was  a  great  Player, 
Player  and  Playwright  both?  He  touched  the  sense, 

And,  touching  it,  opposed  mankind's  betrayer : 
The  human  drama  is  His  evidence. 

Temple  and  stage  in  one  shall  Him  declare, 

And  common  spectacle  hold  common  prayer. 

13 

"Into  Mankind's  career  He  leads  His  act. 

What  if  Lord  Christ  and  Lady  figure  yet ; 
Arch  Lover  and  Arch  Loveress  redact, 

And  so  transpose  Romeo  and  Juliet? 
What  if  time's  curtain  lifts,  to  show  the  scene ; 
Shakspeare  transcended  by  the  Nazarene? 

14 

"Lord  Christ  sails  in  time's  barge  on  galilee ; 

Round  Him  all  mortal  passions  whirl  in  storm  ; 
All  waves  of  thought  heave  to  one  troubled  sea. 

What  if  the  waters  feel  His  moving  form  ? 
What  if  the  whirling  passions  rest,  to  fill 
With  loving  God-life  for  His  ' peace  be  still'?" 

15 

I  sat  with  queen  Fidelia  afterward, 

Saying  'the  good  king  is  right  eloquent.' 

"  He  is  in  a  concern  ;  in  a  regard ; 

His  righteousness  leans  to  the  earth's  event." 

So  spake  she  ;  "  when  he  sleeps,  I  hear  him  sing, 

'Comfort  my  people,  Comfort,  comforting/" 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  161 

LXXVI1L 

1 

Ego,  its  mental  strain  is  pugilistic  ; 

Its  final  argument  the  killing  blow : 
Its  common  sense  turns  on  the  kindly  mystic, 

His  deeds  all  airs  of  peace  in  balmy  flow. 
"  What  will  you  do  about  it?"  answered  he 
To  outraged  Right,  the  chief  of  Tammany. 

2 

That  Peace  would  triumph,  overcoming  War, 

Such  truth  friend  Fox  witnessed  for  Christendom. 

Peace  o'er  time's  forehead  leads  her  morning  star : 
The  Friend  is  coming,  Friendship  is  our  home. 

The  Friendly  People,  from  their  heaven  anigh, 

Breathe  to  mankind  by  fluent  melody. 

3 

Sooth,  we  to  foes  the  other  cheek  have  turned; 

We  for  the  Word  in  fourthness  who  declare. 
Our  hearts  within  to  holy  fire  have  burned  ; 

Our  bosoms  pulsed  God's  breath  to  outer  air. 
Sundry  have  wrought  to  outrage  and  betray  ; 
Robbed,  slandered,  smitten;  they  have  had  their  way. 


Keeping  God's  peace  through  all  of  this,  we  toil 
On,  ever  onward,  to  the  peaceful  end. 

Heaven  opens  to  us  through  such  fierce  turmoil ; 
So  by  full  friendliness  we  meet  the  Friend. — 

A  Lady  beautiful  in  summer  bloom 

Beamed  on  me  ;  thus  rose  Christa  from  the  tomb, 
11 


162  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


5 

Spake  She,  as  speech  may  be  interpreted 

Through  the  part  language  of  the  partial  third, 

"Into  earth's  thirdness  was  My  person  led, 
Being  in-worded  in  the  Bridal  Word. 

Now  as  that  Woman  Yessa,  for  your  sake, 

I  manifest,  as  wThen  We  rose  to  take, 

6 
"Twain-one,  the  earthly  resurrection  on. 

Then  Jesus,  as  ye  know,  was  outwarded. 
The  former  time  had  from  Our  vision  gone, 

And  We  beheld  in  future  time  instead ; 
Seeing  this  time-world,  as  it  soon  must  be, 
Folded  within  Us  to  eternity. 


"So,  after  forty  days,  We  drew  our  feet 
Into  the  path  of  the  ascensive  powers. — 

Rise  with  Me  into  Lilistan ;  repeat 

My  thoughts  within  you,  as  by  falling  flowers 

That  fold  to  speech  by  music  of  sweet  verse. 

Thus  in  the  song  thy  bosom  I  immerse. 

8 

"  Sprinkled  thou  wert  with  the  baptismal  water : 
Now  I  baptize  thee  in  the  vocal  flame  ; 

Leading  in  twain-one  flesh  the  spousal  daughter, 
Dear  to  thee  ever  by  her  four-fold  name. 

The  concept  of  the  Word  by  four-fold  plan 

Germed  in  ye ;  now  'tis  heavened  in  Lilistan. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  163 

9 

"Yea,  'blessed  are  the  twain-one,'  saith  the  Spirit; 

'For  they  inhabit  peace.'     Arise  and  see. 
In  thy  Lord's  righteousness  thou  dost  inherit 

Thy  Lady's  holiness,  twain-one,  full  free. 
The  peace  that  passeth  understanding  flows, 
All  nuptial-wise,  through  wakening  and  repose. 

10 

"Time  holds  a  claim  upon  Us,  time  and  space, 
So  far  as  human  hearts  are  there  to  quicken. 

Our  twain-one  heart  enlarges,  to  embrace 

All  who  for  godness  yearn,  though  spoiled  and  stricken. 

More  offspring  and  more  Father-Mother  still ! 

Heaven  grows  as  kingdoms  in  it  shape  and  fill. 

11 

"  Into  the  earthly  youthness  We  were  shapen, 
A  twain-one  God-Babe ;  so  our  fruited  gold 

Entered  the  planet's  womb ;  thus  to  awaken, 

Wrapped  for  such  time-birth  in  the  fleshly  mould. 

Circling  through  orb  to  orb  from  sun  to  sun, 

Our  rounds  of  visual  incarnations  run. 

12 

"  I  touch  the  clarion  in  thine  ear,  to  ring 

With  fluent  melodies  of  living  sound ; 
Thy  bosomed  lyre  I  thrill  impassioning. 

Awake  thee  to  the  Bridal  Word  unbound ; 
I  dissipate  the  winters  from  thy  shell ; 
I  rise  therein,  the  Woman  of  the  well. 


164  CONVEKSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

13 

"  The  ever  changeful  universe  of  things 

May  by  a  seeming  from  its  form  withdraw ; 

But  thence  to  sight  a  new  creation  springs ; 
The  ever  new  infmiverse  of  law. 

Things  change;  thoughts  ever  from  Us,  Twain-One,  pass 

To  heavens  that  mirror  in  time's  pictured  glass. 

14 

"  When  thou  wert  but  a  simple,  psychic  thing, 

A  glowing  sprite  as  imaged  ariel, 
My  bosom  held  thee  ;  breathed  thee  forth,  to  wing 

By  mystic,  myriad  ways  to  Annie's  bell. 
Thy  twain-one  home  is  in  My  house  of  glee ; 
Thy  spaceness  opened  in  Infinity. 

15 

"  Scant  not  thy  thought  for  time's  misunderstanding. 

Scfant  not  the  pressure  of  the  will  to  live. 
Fear  not  the  futures  that  await  their  banding. 

Cling  to  the  lips  divine  that  utterance  give. 
Ope  to  the  current  that  holds  God  in  flow. 
Art  thou  bestowed  upon  ?  'tis  to  bestow. 

16 

"  A  thought,  a  thought,  a  thought  and  yet  a  thought ; 

'Tis  thus  four-folded  man  is  btfilt  upon ; 
The  simplist  mind  into  its  concept  wrought ; 

The  life-notes  marshaled  to  their  unison  ; 
The  harmony  of  being  in  its  will 
Concentered  ;  so  My  words  to  thee  fulfill. 


Itf  HEAVEN. 


17 
"As  when  heaven's  river  finds  its  cataract, 

Yet  leaps  not  to  the  downfall  but  the  rise, 
So,  by  the  confluent  force  in  vital  act, 

Led  to  new  course  through  landscapes  of  the  skies, 
Life  may  the  burden  of  its  current  bear, 
To  lift,  full  heavened,  in  weightlessness  from  care. 

18 

"  So  may  a  man  glide  over  that  which  seems, 
In  TpiAT-WmcH-Is  to  be  forever  blest ; 

So  enter  where  the  doing  well  supremes  ; 
Labor  in  labor  led  by  rest  in  rest. 

Touch  to  the  nerve  where  most  My  doings  play ; 

Touch  to  the  Holiest  for  thy  staff  and  stay. " 

LXXIX. 


1 

The  Mother  known  in  Jeremiah's  phrase, 
"She  who  is  hidden  in  the  name  of  Yod." 

The  Ancient  folds  the  Ancientess  of  days, 
"The  Gladness  of  the  gladnesses  of  God." 

Airs,  waters,  fragrant  earth,  melodious  flame 

Reveal  Her  to  us  by  the  Four-fold  Name. 

2 

I  glimpsed  a  Sleeping  Beauty,  in  the  wood 
Where  king  Fidelius  holds  a  pleasure  seat. 

Passing  I  touched  in  meditative  mood, 
A  solar  lion  watchful  at  her  feet. 

Joyous  in  bosom  for  the  lovely  sight, 

I  trode  the  wood  path  lifted  by  delight. 


166  CONVERSATION    IN   HEAVEN. 


3 

The  king,  now  in  a  rest  from  cares  of  state, 

All  as  a  yeoman,  tiller  of  the  soil, 
Made  beckoning,  beaming  from  a  brow  elate, 

Holding  the  blessing  of  repose  from  toil. 
Sweet  is  the  pastime,  exquisite  the  mirth 
We  taste,  in  touch  with  aromatic  earth. 

4 

Here  talked  we  afterward  in  priestliness. 

The  holy  book  grew  forth  upon  his  knee  ; 
The  "volume  of  Ten  Thousand  Witnesses," 

A  Word-scroll  textured  through  his  memory. 
The  vital  facts  to  verbal  imprint  grow, 
By  fourthness  through  the  man  unfolded  so. 

5 

"Thus  Shakspeare,  Dante,  Plato  thought,"  he  spake 
Their  glowing  effigies  the  pages  bore. 

The  real  likenesses  of  manhood  take 
Form,  color,  light,  illustrating  the  lore. 

Seen  through  each  countenance,  a  lovely  grace 

Beamed  to  us ;  each  revealed  the  Mother's  face. 

6 

"  The  inner  sense  is  that  which  to  us  lives  " ; 

Spake  he  again;  "a  cup  may  hold  the  sea. 
Scriptured,  pictorial,  through  the  four-fold  sieves, 

Drop  the  gold  sands  of  truth  in  melody. 
The  Man  is  in  the  book,  as  here  we  scan 
How  that  the  volume  may  be  born  of  man. 


CONVERSATION    IN    M^AVEN.  167 


7 

"'Of  the  ten  Sephiroth/  the  magi  said, — 

'The  All-Creating  and  the  All-Commanding,-— 

Are  two,  God-Man  God-Woman  interwed : 
Chokmah  is  Wisdom,  Binah  Understanding. 

Chokmah  begets,  Binah  conceives  thereof 

Truthness  from  Truth  and  lovingness  from  Love/ 

8 

uSo  God  begets  in  tirneness  for  a  time; 

Goddess  conceives  in  spaceness  for  a  space. 
But  time  and  space  as  one-in-twain  incline, 

Ingenerating  shadow  by  embrace. 
Thus  told  a  poet  of  the  God  Most  High, 
( Nature  is  shadow  that  we  see  Him  by. ' 

9 

"Hear  thence  a  lesson  of  the  Archimage: 
This  is  our  Word ;  Eternal  Daughter-Son. 

Chokmah  in  Binah  are  His  heritage; 
The  Well-Beloved  Aye-Proceeding  One, 

Who  is  above  all  things,  before  them  all ; 

The  Tree  of  Life,  Arch-Eden,  Way  and  Wall. 

10 

"Word  was  in  the  beginning;  Word  was  God. 

Word  was  with  God,  the  Light  before  the  shade ; 
The  Word  concealed  within  the  name  of  Yod, 

By  whom  all  things  from  archetypes  were  made. 
Here  Israel  ended;  closed  the  lettered  mesh. 
Seer-prophets  knew  and  waited  Word  made  flesh. 


168  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


11 

"  Passing  the  thought  of  third  dimensioned  mind, 

Surpassing  feel  of  correlated  sense, 
Such  wisdom  by  the  greek  was  undiviiied, 

And  to  the  hebrew  vailed,  obscure  and  dense. 
By  the  uriworded  mind  'tis  counted  vain ; 
"Pis  the  Word  in  us  that  the  Word  makes  plain. 

12 

"So  the  True  Light  the  world  of  mind  was  in, 
And  the  unworded  world  received  Him  not ; 

Yet  those,  from  ego  who  the  mind  could  win, 
Beheld  the  Lamb  of  God,  withouten  spot 

Or  blemish  or  the  shade  of  evil  thing  ;  — 

God,  made  Man  Innocence  and  witnessing." 

13 

Ended  he  here ;  led  to  his  garden  house. 

^The  Sleeping  Beauty,  now  the  servitress, 
Gave  toothsome  viands ;  her  blithe,  beaming  spouse 

Invoked  God  Kighteousness-in-Holiness. 
Grand  was  his  bearing,  reverent,  worshiping, 
Bowed  to  the  Joyous  Queen  in  Joyful  King ! 

14 

So,  whilst  we  fed  with  hearty  appetites, 

Fidelia,  habited  as  kitchen  queen, 
Broke  warbling  to  a  song  of  summer  nights ; 

Touching  her  breasts  by  interludes  between, 
Till  from  them  rose  to  sight,  by  rounding  swells, 
Song-billows ;  taking  shape  as  flowery  dells, 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAV&N.  169 


15 

Gay  woodlands,  flying  gardens  in  the  air, 
Filled  with  the  joy  of  love  birds  caroling; 

The  Mother  Moon,  a  Lady  with  gold  hair, 
Ascendant,  compassed  by  a  four-fold  ring 

Of  bright  star  maidens  :  so  the  vision  passed 

Into  a  sea  of  odor,  sweetest  last. 

16 

Hence,  being  fed,  the  king  drew  to  his  knee 
A  white  page  ;  writ  in  letters  violet  gold ; 
So  in  his  correspondence  made  to  see. 

Scroll  after  scroll  was  preciously  unrolled, 
But  thence  Fidelia  slipped  them  from  his  knees ; 
Twined  them  in  air-shapes,  winged  for  the  breeze, 

17 

And  tossed  them  to  the  flight  with  joyous  laughter ; 

His  royal  words  to  kinsmen  of  the  land. 
Who  would  not  yearn  for  such  divine  Hereafter  ? 

But  now  the  queen  arose ;  I  kissed  her  hand 
With  reverence,  more  than  reverence  :  one,  mine  own, 
Out-leaning  touched  her  lips. —  I  stood  alone, 

18 

A  silent,  solitary  man.     Ke turned 

Soon  after  to  my  earth-place  I  indite. 
The  joy  that  lives,  within  my  bosom  urned, 

Stirs  to  the  memory  of  such  dear  delight ; 
So  now  I  muse,  the  flowing  lines  between, 
Of  king  Fidelius  and  his  household  queen. 


PART    FOURTH 


"  Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  He  will 
dwell  with  them,  and  they  shall  be  His  People,  and  He  shall 
be  their  God.  And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their 
eyes ;  and  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow  nor 
crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain  :  for  the  former 
things  are  passed  away." 

REV.  xxi.  3,  4. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN, 


LXXX. 

1 

MAN  is  immortal,  in  true  acceptation, 

By  imputation  of  God's  worded  life  ; 
This  made  his  own  through  an  assimilation, 

In  simple  sweet  heroic  patient  strife, 
To  serve  the  good  in  all  things,  good  in  true. 
This  the  New  Life,  the  life  forever  new. 

2 

This  is  eternal  life ;  to  feel  and  knowr 

The  Lord,  the  Word  made  flesh,  our  ground  of  hope, 
Our  substance  of  existence,  and  to  grow 

Into  His  likeness-image,  till  the  scope 
Of  hope  and  fear  is  lost  in  certainties ; 
The  Word  our  light ;  His  Form  our  paradise. 

-     3.-,.* 

Only  as  God  stands  in  him  man  is  man ; 

Yet  God  is  in  him  by  an  imputation, 
To  will,  to  work,  to  meditate,  to  plan. 

But  man  unmakes  himself  by  desecration  ; 
Shell  after  shell,  mind,  spirit,  soul  are  lost 
In  vacuo  ;  germs  that  perish  for  dull  frost. 


174  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN  . 


4 

Mere  seeming  man  must  end  in  dissolution  ; 

"Dust  that  he  is,  to  dust  he  shall  return." 
Death  is  his  stand-place  ;  death  the  path's  conclusion  ; 

First  fails  his  outer  shell,  a  broken  urn. 
The  lives  reluct,  the  senses  make  demur, 
They  shrink  instinctive  from  the  sepulcher. 

5 

The  shell  that  is  man's  memory-form,  his  geisjb, 
Is  hence  his  outermost  ;  time's  dim  frontier, 

Its  border-land,  thence  to  the  sense  apprised  : 

There  he  in  new-wrought  seemings  holds  the  year  ; 

The  solar  world  unseen  save  by  its  gleams  ; 

Its  image,  by  a  ghostliness  that  streams 


Through  the  stained  windows  of  the  earth's  mankind. 

A  world  of  shades  below  the  space  we  press, 
As  hades  or  elysium  'twas  divined, 

Part  imaged  in  the  grecian  consciousness. 
The  seeming  man  led  there,  a  mortal  yet  ; 
Led  vaguely  from  remembrance  to  forget. 


This  is  the  world  whereto  the  Roman  thought 
To  find  the  spectral  manes  of  his  dead. 

'Tis  here  the  Hebrew  for  a  rest  besought ; 
The  under-world  where  shades  are  quieted  ; 

Where  there  is  no  new  knowledge,  nor  device, 

Nor  growth  of  pains,  nor  spoil  for  avarice. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  175 


8 

So  posed  it  to  the  earthly  bards  and  seers ; 

But  to  those  dwelling  in  it  not  the  same ; 
The  unspent  motions  of  their  natured  years 

Surviving  in  a  shadowed  nature  game. 
Earth  has  its  ages,  iron,  bronze  or  stone ; 
There  the  same  ages,  but  as  shadows  known. 

9 

The  gandaveer,  larve,  spectre,  spook  and  ghost, 
"  Gorgons  and  horrors  and  chimeras  dire," 

Were  imaged  shapes,  projected  o'er  the  coast 
Of  human  fear  or  fancy  or  desire  ; 

Wraiths  in  the  moving  mirage,  floating  far, 

Glimpsed  on  the  vague  horizon's  shadowed  bar. 

10 

All  that  Earth  fashioned  stood  again  in  Hades, 
But  by  a  wasting  semblance,  growing  less  ; 

The  hierarchs  and  kings,  the  knights  and  ladies, 
Deceased  to  dwell  in  other-worldliness  ; 

Made  sensitives,  made  psychics,  mediums  all 

For  an  illusive  custom  past  recall ; 

11 

Not  spiritual,  but  a  "  spiritism  "  ; 

Never  inspired,  but  " inspirational"  ; 
Their  minds  a  vacuo  in  magnetism  ; 

Earthly  mankind  their  house  of  food  and  call ; 
"  Revisiting  the  glimpses  of  the  moon  "  ; 
Oft  dreaming  of  " re-incarnation"  soon. 


176  CONVERSATION -IN  .HEAVEN*. 


12 

Sects,  pastimes,  customs  there  in  wan  survival  ; 

Frolic,  sport,  farce  or  tragedy  grown  stale  ; 
Yet  shaping  feebly  to  a  new  arrival ; 

Failing  and  varying  as  an  oft-told  tale  ; 
Earth's  marriage  ways  renewed,  in  vacuo  spread ; 
Feast  of  cold  gods,  the  banquet  of  the  dead. 

13 

Here  Brutus  toils  anew  the  blade  to  grasp, 
Arid  bring  proud  Julius  gasping  to  the  knee. 

Here  Cleopatra  finds  again  her  asp, 
As  real  as  the  shade  of  Antony. 

Here  the  robed  augur  from  the  altar  hales 

The  victim  to  inspect  the  sanguine  trails. 

14 

'Twas  all  a  death,  in  outlet  from  a  dying  ; 

Changeful  mock-vision  of  a  gradual  swoon  ; 
Not  an  ascension  but  a  deep  down-lying  ; 

The  mortal  insect  in  more  frail  cocoon, 
Shaped  as  the  old  one  cleft  its  failing  shell ; — 
A  pseudo  evolution  nigh  to  hell. 

15 

So  the  old  Faiths  impinged  upon  the  facts  ; 

Broken,  distorted,  wrought  by  priestly  arts 
For  superstition's  drama,  that  enacts 

By  many  spectacles  to  fill  the  marts 
Of  third  dimensioned  custom,  and  to  round 
Time's  orbit  in  a  spectral  wonder-ground. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  177 


LXXXI. 


1 

"  Space  is  the  unadorned  vacuity, 

And  time  a  motion  through  its  linears  led  ; 
A  space  of  sea,  where  yet  there  is  no  sea  ; 

A  space  of  soil,  where  soil  not  yet  dispread  ; 
A  space  of  air,  where  air  is  not  yet  born. — 
Breaths  enter,  of  creations  to  forewarn. 


"  The  breath  of  God  creates  the  universe  ; 

'Tis  the  first  witness  of  the  Archimage. 
The  potencies,  in  odors  that  immerse, 

To  the  etheric  cloud  for  floods  empage. 
Creation  lives,  an  orb  of  flowing  seas, 
Breaking  to  globules  for  the  galaxies. 

3 

"God  breathes  for  joy  into  the  living  sea, 
And  so  the  flood  respires ;  the  fluid  suns 

Thrill  to  the  universal  harmony. — 
'Tis  thus  the  story  of  creation  runs." 

The  Ancient  held  his  knees  impact  to  mine ; 

Grew  forth  the  God-book :  how  the  pages  shine  ! 

4 

But  thence  I  felt  the  knees  thrill  masterly. 

"Yea,"  spake  he,  "feel  the  motion  ;  it  is  time." 
The  motion  grew,  through  instep,  feet  to  ply  ; 

Their  nerves  received  a  palpitating  rhyme. 
"  Time  shapes  in  rhythms ;  times  in  times  achord. 
Enter,  through  time,  eternity,  its  Lord. 
12 


178  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

5 

"  Man  must  be  born  in  time,  that  hence  he  may 

Enter  eternity  as  born  again. 
The  fourth  dimension  through  the  third  makes  play 

That  mortals  may  be  wrought  immortal  men." 
Like  iron  at  last  the  vigors  grew  to  feel ; 
Made  solid  basic  force  that  met  the  heel. 

6 

Achilles  was  invulnerable,  all 

Save  in  the  heel ;  this  only  failed  to  be 

Immersed,  as  grecian  poesies  recall, 
In  bath  of  fluent  immortality. 

Forth  from  the  storied  past,  the  ancients  drew 

Mythes,  that  involved  the  truths  wherefrom  they  grew 


The  serpent  Ego,  the  edenic  snake, — 

The  "woman's  seed  shall  crush  his  venomed  head," 
So  God  to  Adam  in  the  garden  spake, 

"But  he  shall  bruise  the  heel";  'tis  there  intread 
The  arrears  of  the  powers,  that  oppose 
Man,  who  would  to  eternity  unclose. 

8 

We  saw  how  Christa  pressed  Her  heel  upon 
Earth's  ignominies:  that  which  smites  on  us 

In  these  last  years,  almost  through  time  agone, 
Is  warfare  of  the  ignominious. 

The  sympathies  stand  in  one  human  shape  ; 

So  by  the  heel  they  crush  upon  the  snake. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  179 

9 

He  stings  them,  where  they  meet  him  to  efface 

Selfdom  in  the  unselfness  :  'tis  the  last 
Of  the  deliria  that  infest  the  race. 

Passing  the  arrear  foe  all  foes  are  passed ; 
The  feet  leave  ignominy,  for  the  rise 
To  the  pare  light  where  God  is  paradise. 

10 

Make  thou  no  answer  to  the  enmities  ; 

But  hold  to  crush  the  head  of  ego's  worm. 
Hold  till  God  in  thee  by  a  timeness  plies, 

To  make  thy  tread  as  iron  to  the  term. 
When  the  last  wounds  that  in  the  heel  make  plight 
Are  closed,  Achilles,  thou  hast  won  the  fight.  . 

11 

In  such  grave  silence  did  the  Master  tread, 
On,  on  to  Calvary ;  through  death  trode  He  ; 

At  each  pained  step  He  met  the  Serpent's  head. 
Such  is  our  four-fold  path  to  victory. 

Still  follow,  follow,  till  the  iron  heel 

Shapes  in  a  body  wrought  as  vital  steel. 


LXXXII. 

1 
I  met  a  Roman,  the  centurion 

Who  saw  Christ  crucified  and  pitied  Him. 
The  tender  soul  through  all  these  years  has  gone, 

Still  feeling,  in  Christ's  pity  led  to  swim. 
The  Pitying  Martyr  caught  his  pity  so, 
Meeting  its  touch  by  love  in  overflow, 


180  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


•-2, 

The  iron  warrior  made  a  mental  stroke, 
As  thus  my  feet  in  Christ  to  hold :  a  bliss 

Of  healing  kindness  thrilled  me  till  it  spoke  ; 
He  breathed  warm  pity,  as  by  lips  to  kiss  ; 

He  touched  mine  eyes  by  reverence,  to  repeat 

Joy,  serving  thus  God's  pity  to  the  feet. 

3 

A  quaker  lady  named  Elizabeth 

Said,  "unto  George  this  dear  centurion  came, 
As  bearing  precious  oils  from  Nazareth. 

He  witnessed  on  to  others  by  the  same ; 
So,  where  Friend's  charities  to  service  burn, 
As  ministering  friend  he  holds  concern." 


LXXXIII. 

1 

The  dew  of  Christ  is  as  no  other  dew ; 

'Tis  love  in  impregnation  ;  on  the  rose 
Of  womanhood  it  falls  ;  it  trickles  through 

Her  being,  multiplying  to  the  close ; 
It  flows  to  waters,  sprinkles  by  sweet  rains, 
Quenches  the  fires  that  riot  in  the  veins. 

2 

Spake  Annie,  solemn,  slow,  "thou,  thou  beloved, 
Whom  I  did  bear,  'twras  mother  milk  divine, 

The  dew  of  Christ,  that  in  my  body  moved, 
Baptizing  thee  ;  warm  blood  of  Christ  the  vine, 

So  thou  art  as  a  grape  on  Christ  the  Bough, 

Made  multiplying  clusters  until  now," 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  181 

3 

She  vanished,  vanished  in  a  mist  of  tears, 

The  halo  of  Christ's  pity ;  but  anon 
I  felt,  as  feeling  through  the  cloud  of  years, 

Remembrance  of  a  sacred  hour  bygone, 
When  Annie,  as  an  angel,  o'er  my  bed 
Shone  witnessing ;  such  word  as  this  she  said  : 

4 

"My  child,  poor  child,  always  of  this  remember; 

God  is  your  Father,  and  your  brother  man." 
'Twas  in  a  night  of  youth's  most  drear  December, 

Wounded,  athirst ;  the  pity  broke,  it  ran 
Through  mists  that  goldened,  till  supernal  day 
Lit  the  dark  room  ;  December  lost  in  May. 


Thenceforth  my  life  changed :  touched  by  motherhood, 
The  calyx  of  the  soul  wrreathed  lips  to  part : 

The  pure  in  beautiful,  the  true  in  good, 
The  brave  in  conduct,  lyrical  in  art 

Rose  in  me  as  the  vine  may  from  its  root ; 

Yea,  and  thereafter  Christ  was  borne  to  fruit. 

6 

Time  passes  on,  but  Christ's  heart  throbs  in  time ; 

Time  grows,  the  heart-beats  thrill  with  mightier  force ; 
Time  heightens,  Christ  uplifts  through  it  sublime  ; 

Time  deepens,  Christ  is  made  its  rivered  course ; 
Time  culminates,  'tis  then  Lord  Christ  we  see ; 
We  enter  Him,  Christ  is  Eternity. 


182  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

LXXXIV. 


1 
"  Creations  rise  in  breathings  of  the  Word. 

The  universe  is  led,  a  living  song, 
Octaves  from  octaves,  universal  chord, 

Sounds  upon  sounds :  the  sweet  harmonic  throng 
Guide,  through  impassioned  flowings  of  the  fire, 
Swift  winged  shapes,  the  soul-germs  of  desire. 


"  Creation  so  is  God's  desire  in  motion  ; 

Desires,  desires,  the  ever-flowing  sea ; 
God-life  in  germ-lives  heaving  to  their  ocean ; 

Word-song  in  universal  melody  ; 
Life,  swept  along  in  billows  of  glad  sound ; 
Desires,  led  through  desires  by  vorticed  round. 

3 

"Fire,  water,  air  and  aromatic  earth, 
In  the  Divine  Maternity,  their  bed, 

To  substance  of  persistence  rhythm  forth, 
Eternal,  infinite ;  the  fountain-head 

Wherein  the  word-desires  by  music  flow, 

As  Word-flames  in  them  for  the  sunbeams  glow." 

4 

The  Ancientess  of  days  deliciously 

Spake,  if  such  vibrating  be  speech  by  name, 

"Song  is  perpetual  bridal  ecstasy 

In  God  One-Twain ;  the  word-desires  outcame, 

Born  in  the  song  to  fold  and  co-exist ; — 

The  myriad  joy-lives  of  the  pleasure  mist. 


IN 


"  Binah  is  understanding,  overstanding  ; 

Binah  instanding  and  outstanding,  four ; 
Pasts,  presents,  futures,  finals  knowing,  wanding, 

Through  time,  Her  motion,  and  through  space,  Her  floor ; 
Omega  so  in  Alpha  weaves  Her  dress ; — 
The  Mother  Life  whose  Form  is  Loneliness. 


6 

"The  Mother  of  creation  'tis  who  sings 

In  the  small  fays  that  rhythm  to  thine  ear ; 

Such  were  the  word-desires,  whose,  carolings 

Wrought  one  melodious  murmur,  when  the  sphere 

Of  the  arch-cosmos  opened  for  the  rod 

Of  impregnation  ; — God  in  Woman  God. 


"  Such  word-desires  dwelt  in  one  knowingness, 
Instilling  joy  to  joy  in  such  sweet  hreath  ; 

Organic  earths,  airs,  waters,  flamenesses. — 
Binah,  in  Christus-Christa,  'tis  who  saith, 

( Thou  in  thine  inmost  art  a  psychic  ray ; 

A  word-desire,  man  fay  to  woman  fay.' 

8 

"  Return  into  thy  fairy  mind  again  ; 

By  interstanding  find  the  fairy  floor." — 
Lo !  I  was  in-stanced  with  the  little  men  ; 

A  fairy  parson  met  me  at  the  door ; 
Welcomed  me  to  a  fairy  conclave  hall ; 
A  palace  in  the  brain-world,  largely  small. 


184  CONVERS  ATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


LXXXV. 


1 
I  sat  at  ease  with  one,  the  fairy  Moses ; 

That  fay  who  was  the  word-desire  of  him 
Who,  as  the  lore  of  Israel  discloses, 

Was  once,  a  man-baj>e  where  the  lilies  brim 
Upon  the  yellow  bosom  of  old  nile, 
Drawn  from  his  ark  of  rushes,  for  awhile 


To  find  a  refuge  from  the  famished  water, 

And  taste  sweet  mother  milk  from  woman's  breast, 

And  stand  affirmed  by  Egypt's  princely  daughter, 
Clad  in  rich  honors  as  such  themes  attest ; 

And  hence  find  entrance  to  the  mysteries,  known 

In  the  dread  halls  where  Isis  orbs  her  throne. 

3 

Twelve  fairies  held  in  common  care,  as  plighted 
Into  twelve  months  that  rule  time's  rounding  year ; 

Fays  who,  in  Egypt's  hierophants,  delighted 

To  shape  the  knowings  whence  the  truths  appear ; 

And  wisdoms  to  the  outerstand  enlarge ; 

And  sensitives  wreathe  to  the  body's  marge. 

4 

Graced  in  a  rounded  calm,  the  conclave  smiled, — 

Grave  infants  who  through  rounding  time  had  passed ; 

Spake,  twelve-in-one,  "time  shall  be  unbeguiled." 
The  fairy  who  found  Moses,  for  the  last, 

Finished  the  phrase  with,  "time  is  all  a-flow; 

Earth  shall  be  found,  as  Moses  long  ago. 


CONVERSATION  IN  HEAVEN.  185 


"  Out  of  his  wicker  basket  on  time's  nile, 
Man  shall  uplift  by  the  Great  Lady's  quest. 

Mankind  shall  open  its  broad  eyes  to  smile, 
Caught  to  the  milky  fountains  of  Her  breast." 

Lowly  responded  all  the  little  men, 

"Yea,  yea,  Her  coming  lifts  mankind  again." 


LXXXVI. 


1 

Stately,  in  Egypt's  carved  and  polished  lore, 
Dwelt  the  man  Moses  when,  from  virgin  youth, 

He  knelt  the  Holy  AVoman  to  adore, 

Whom  magi  sought  and  owned  as  Mother  Truth. 

He  strove,  with  shadowed  Isis  to  prevail ; 

He  kissed  her  hem  to  serve  and  never  fail. 

2 

Four  aspects  are  whereby  man  Moses  shows  : 
His  work  is  met  in  Israel's  house  of  bone. 

The  wisdom  of  that  service  would  unclose 

A  little,  through  the  fay-world  faithly  known. 

He  entered  fourthness  to  its  first  degree ; 

That  which  reveals  God  Truth  in  unity ; 

3 

That  which  is  sculptured  in  th6  name  of  Yod, 
The  Jehovistic  concept  from  the  Word. 

Up  to  this  height  as  Sinai  he  trod  ; 

By  meekness  of  approach  the  Voice  he  heard. 

By  twain-one  grace  I  met  the  very  man, 

High  on  the  sacred  mount  of  Lilistan. 


186  CONVERSATION   IN 


4 

His  love  was  with  him  to  that  lady  height. 

Upon  his  knees  outgrew  the  holy  book, — 
Their  knees  together ;  a  divine  delight 

Flowed  through  it,  in  such  wise  the  mountain  shook, 
And  there  were  thunders  that  in  music  rolled, 
And  lightnings  that  enwove  to  curtained  gold. 

5 

Then  Issa  came  ;  she  led  four  knees  to  meet. 

Through  his  right  arm  Moses  the  word-staff  drew, 
And  in  a  voice,  as  when  starred  magi  greet, 

By  tones  that  thrilled  the  breathful  bosom  through, 
Led  by  deep  interbreathings  into  mine, 
Spake  of  the  mysteries  that  his  days  entwine. 

6 
Moses,  in  genius  purely  aryan, 

Was  yet  in  flesh  of  the  Semitic  wrought ; 
A  very  grecian  by  the  worded  plan, 

Shrewd  as  Ulysses,  who,  whilst  heroes  fought, 
Toiled  for  the  victory  of  arms  in  arts, 
As  Wisdom  by  the  opportune  imparts. 

7 

He  was  full  deep,  but  in  no  base  concealment. 

In  secret  ways  of  human  nature  versed, 
He  knew  that  time  was  rife  for  re-revealment 

Of  God-lore  by  the  token  of  the  First. 
He  served  Truth's  opportune,  to  weave  a  spell 
That  should  evolve  a  people,  Israel. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  187 


He  knew  that  to  lead  forth  a  cruel  horde,- — • 
'Twas  in  such  thought  his  wisdoming  began, — 

A  people  who  must  win  their  soil  by  sword, 
Truth  must  be  imaged  as  the  Mighty  Man, 

Jehovah  of  the  hosts  ;  hence  to  proclaim 

The  unity  of  God  his  task  became. 

9 

He  knew  that  in  one  people  this  must  be 
Infashioned,  wrought  by  miracle  and  sign, 

To  stand  opposed  to  time's  idolatry, 

Whereto  had  died  the  olden  faiths  divine. 

He  knew  that  to  a  people,  hard  of  heart 

And  cruel  to  the  core,  he  must  impart 

10 

A  current  of  sure  energy,  to  hold 

Their  abject  selfishness,  and  serve  the  ends 
Of  the  great  purpose,  that  from  ages  old 

Works  on,  and  to  mankind's  renewal  tends. 
He  was  a  servant  of  the  "  hidden  fire," 
And  so  shaped  Israel  for  its  rugged  lyre. 

11 

Hence  he  excluded  all  things  from  the  cult, 
That  shadowed  God  the  Masculine  from  view. 

He  swung  his  teaching  as  a  catapult, 

To  smite  the  fraudful  adepts,  who  pursue 

The  paths  where  men  to  apparitions  feel  : 

Upon  the  'spiritist'  he  set  his  heel. 


188  CONVERSATION    IN    HfiAVtftf. 

12 

That  faith  in  God  as  Personal  would  perish, — 
As  it  is  perishing  on  earth  to-day, — 

Were  this  inchoate  people  free  to  cherish 
Fictioned  theosophy,  that  held  a  sway 

In  magic  conclaves,  this  he  knew  beside, 

And  closed  the  pit  wherein  old  ages  died. 

13 

"The  secret  things  belong  to  God"  he  cried. 

As  say  the  Friends,  "  for  this  he  held  concern." 
He  sought  to  build,  to  build,  and  to  provide 

Against  the  inroads  that  shape  overturn. 
He  knew  that  priests  conserve,  that  ritual  forms 
A  stronghold  for  the  faith  against  the  storms. 

14 

So  he  built  Israel  in  conservatism.     •, 
The  pillar  of  the  Truth  he  held  erect, 

A  living  rock,  to  breast  the  occult  schism 
Of  all  encroaching  evil,  and  protect 

The  worship  of  God  One,  its  moral  creed, 

Though  man  should  faint  thereby  and  woman  bleed. 

15 

Orbed  in  calm  intellect,  he  traveled  far 

By  spiritual  insight ;  was  aware 
He  showed  to  Israel  the  rocky  bar, 

Vailed  the  deep  sea  divine  that  crested  there ; 
Yet  questing  on,  he  saw  that  One  should  rise 
In  Israel,  of  the  mystery  to  apprise. 


CON  VEKSATION  JN.  HEAVEN.  189 

16 

Holding  his  labors  but  provisional, 

He  thought  t'ward  Israel  of  a  latter  day  ; 

Clasping  in  God  the  source  and  terminal ; 
Broadened  through  all  the  nations  to  array ; 

Owning  God  Man,  born  in  the  flesh  to  bless 

The  world,  its  Righteousness  in  Holiness. 

17 

By  hints,  half  spoken  phrases,  speech  of  looks, 
Kind  manners,  meeknesses,  fraternal  wiles, 

He  breathed  a  wisdom  that  no  written  books 
Could  dare  express. — A  thunder  on  him  piles  ; 

His  brow  is  vailed  in  wisdoms  darkly  grand  ; 

Lightnings  flame  through  him,  worded  staff  in  hand. 

LXXXV1I. 


1 

The  knees  were  parted  and  the  book  invailed. 

Again  I  write  :  the  mild  September  day 
Hushes  her  airs  to  slumber.     I  inhaled 

The  Mother's  balm,  it  rhythmed  in  the  lay. 
I  taste  the  aster  and  the  golden  rod, 
Mixed  with  the  blossoms  of  the  breath  of  God. 

2 

Through  alien  airs  I  force  a  distant  speech ; 

The  earthly  world,  enwrapt  in  shadows  gray, 
Shows  but  by  mortal  shells  upon  its  beach ; 

Yet  Wisdom  meets  them  by  the  lyric  spray  ; 
Life  from  the  billows  of  the  flowing  sea, 
Whose  crested  waves  ope  lips  of  melody. 


190  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


"Our  conversation  is  in  heaven,  "  Paul  spake, 
"Whence  also  cometh  Christ,  our  Expectation  ; 

So  these  vile  forms,  wherein  our  spirits  ache, 
Shall  change  unto  His  glorious  conformation. 

For  this  He  is  full  able  to  pursue, 

Making  all  things  in  His  own  likeness  new." 

4 

'Tis  in  the  faith  of  the  Apostle's  creed, 

The  path  of  faith,  Faith's  witness,  that  I  wing 

Thoughts  that  do  burn  in  sympathies  that  bleed ; 
I  too  a  friend  "  concerned  for  witnessing." 

Through  Moses  lined  the  Christ-faith  unto  Paul ; 

Christ-Christa  is  our  all,  our  very  all. 

5 
I  memorized  ;  no  more  I  memorize, 

Save  as  the  Word  for  pasts  would  so  array ; 
My  home  is  in  the  wedded  sanctities. 

Bear  with  me  yet  a  little,  whilst  I  say 
Peace,  'peace  that  passeth  understanding '  flows, 
By  interstanding,  for  the  sure  repose. 

6 
I  caught  to  Christ  lore,  as  the  overbought 

That  swings  anigh  pent  swimmers  in  the  stroom, 
When  nearing  cataracts  their  might  avow, 

And  whirling  mist-wreaths  darken  for  the  doom. 
Christ  was  the  Bough,  the  Tree;  His  grace  upbore. 
Find  home-rest  in  Him,  love,  believe,  adore. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HE  A.VE  N  .  191 


LXXXVIII. 


1 

"  Calm  night, "  said  Plato,  "  night  that  breedeth  thought." 

There  is  a  darkness  that  enfolds  the  day, 
The  Mother  Darkness:  through  starred  silence  wrought, 

A  mystery  of  Truth  I  hence  assay. 
He  that  hath  ears  that  breathe  a  voice  may  hear, 
That  moves  in  rhythms  ;  dewy  flames  appear  ; 

2 

They  touch  the  nostrils  for  discrimination. 

The  mystery  of  sex  in  perfume  hides, 
Through  immanation  drawn  to  emanation. 

The  violet  odor  breathes  of  wedded  brides  ; 
Rose  led  through  violet  full  wifely  bloom. 
Life's  odor  sea  is  hived  in  Christa's  womb. 

3 

Johannes  writ  of  "  vials  full  of  odor  "  ; 

Inhaled  them  so  ;  "these  are  the  prayers  of  saints." 
The  Wife  stood  nigh  me ;  fragrance  overflowed  Her. 

Spake  She,  "We  shrine  such  wives;  'gainst  fears  and  faints. 
The  breaths  of  God  in  woman  overbrim, 
Meeting  the  sense  of  man  to  hearten  him. 

4 

"  Tis  the  enwomaned  man  who  leads  advance 
In  faiths  and  cultures ;  fashions  for  the  charts 

Of  new  discoveries  ;  opens  the  romance  ; 
Creates  the  poesies  ;  renews  the  arts. 

But  that  Minerva's  bosom  charmed  her  son, 

Never  had  shone  Athena's  parthenon. 


192  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


"Opes  through  the  nostrils  of  the  worded  man 

The  Woman's  Word,  breathes  for  him  purely  sweet. 

Minds  that  the  truth-wrave  flowed  are  coldly  wan, 
Till  they  are  billowed  in  Her  bridal  heat." 

She  smiled ;  I  kissed  the  grace-ring  on  Her  hand. 

Lo!  'twas  the  Queen,  the  Lady  of  God's  land. 

6 
All  night,  as  one  awake  in  Jacob's  tent, 

I  wrestled  with  the  Mother  of  sweet  fires  ; 
Till,  won  to  Her  by  a  divine  consent, 

Rest  found  me  in  the  concord  of  Her  lyres: 
Then  mine  enworded  eyes  beheld  the  glades, 
Blest  by  the  myriads  of  Her  white  robed  maids. 

7 
Rare  fragrance  of  the  Mother's  holiness 

Robes  them  enlilied,  haloes  breast  and  brow  : 
Thus  the  ten  thousand  thousand  witnesses, 

Her  "vials  of  sweet  odors,"  there  avow. 
"Prayers  of  all  saints"  enfill  them,  they  exhale, 
They  breast,  they  breathe,  they  wrestle  and  prevail. 

8 

One  touched  me  in  the  nerve  of  supplication ; 

But  hence  the  nerve,  in  righteousness  of  might, 
Drew  ardencies  that  lead  prolification 

Of  song  from  song,  from  holiness  delight ; 
Yet  to  the  nostrils  fed  a  pleasant  smell 
Of  living  odor  from  the  Mother's  well. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  193 

9 

The  round  white  girl  was  with  me  afterward, 

A  wifely  presence  dipped  to  overbough. 
Touched  to  the  nostrils  by  a  wise  regard, 

A  sapience  grew  that  finds  expression  now. 
The  scent  of  prey  that  hawk  or  vulture  shows 
Is  in  the  beak,  fore-type  of  Israel's  nose. 

10 

All  sweets,  by  one  pure  odor  of  the  good, 
Flow  in  the  uprise  and  return  of  prayer  ; 

But  the  glad  fragrance  to  aromal  food 

Grows  in  the  wiferiess  of  the  nuptial  pair. 

The  rounded  grace  breathed  to  a  bridal  kiss ; 

Left  on  the  lips  rich  bread  ;  prayers  form  to  this. 

11 

"Man  did  eat  angel's  food."     There  was  a  labor 

In  recent  time  that  I  was  called  to  do  ; 
It  spake  for  sharpness  as  a  mental  saber, 

A  sapience,  guilt  and  guile  to  fathom  through. 
In  prayerful  rest,  ere  to  such  combat  led, 
My  lips  held  transubstantiated  bread. 

12 

Yea,  'tis  explicit ;  bread  grew  in  my  lips  ; 

Grew  such  as  loaves,  work  of  the  baker's  art, 
Cut  for  the  bride  cake,  ere  the  wedded  slip 

Away  and  for  the  honeymoon  depart. 
"Jest  not  with  holy  things." — I  dare  not  jest ; 
Surely  the  bread  was  there,  it  left  a  zest 
13 


194  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


13 

That  lingered,  and  the  perfume  filled  the  chamber, 
Lived  all  the  night  and  all  the  coming  day. 

A  godly  widow,  as  she  will  remember, 
Made  visit,  and  a  morsel  found  its  way 

Into  her  mouth  ;  praising  the  Lord,  she  ate, 

Inhaled  warm  fragrance  richly  delicate. 

14 

I  say  not,  if  the  manna  was  a  mytke, 

Or  a  descent  of  bread  on  Israel  ; 
Truths  in  old  scripture  to  their  symbols  wive  ; 

Yet  bread  from  Worded  lips  may  grow  full  well. 
In  miracle  the  years  to  years  achord ; 
We  tell  it  not,  our  secret  with  the  Lord. 

15 

These  are  the  secrets  of  Truth's  nuptial  bowers. 

We  hive  them  in  the  sanctuaried  cell, 
Curtained  as  in  the  ark,  till  some  wise  hour 

Breathes  on  the  lips  that  poesies  may  tell. 
"  Man  did  eat  angel's  food  "  ;  yea,  now  partake 
Visioned  or  vailed,  that  sapience  may  awake. 


LXXXIX. 


1 

That  which  man  lacketh  is  discrimination. 

The  third  dimensioned  egoists  pursue 
The  processes  of  occult  rumination, 

Till  fiction  forms  its  miracle  to  view. 
The  serpent  rods,  that  Egypt's  adepts  plied, 
Strove  with  the  rod  of  Moses,  but  they  died. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  195 

2 

The  danger  from  true  miracle  is  this, 

That  it  arouses  occult  enmities. 
The  under  world  is  troubled  then  to  hiss  ; 

The  phantoms  are  disquieted  ;  they  rise 
Upon  the  Worded  man  to  overwhelm, 
Seeing  he  meets  Event  and  grasps  the  helm. 

3 

The  danger  from  true  miracle  beside, 

Is  that  the  Worded  man  is  classed  with  knaves 

Who  in  the  saddle,  superstition,  ride, 

And  by  its  whip  and  bridle  rule  the  slaves ; 

The  fearful,  credulous,  oft  kindly  folk, 

Who  heed  the  crank  as  if  an  angel  spoke. 

4 

Save  us  from  cranks ;  Good  Lord,  deliver  us 
From  the  small  fry  of  fictioned  men,  the  dupes 

Of  ego's  fantasies  ;  pestiferous, 

Malodorous  in  wastage  of  the  "  spooks." 

Celestial  orbs,  the  universe  that  gem, 

'Tis  not  for  ghost-play  God  created  them. 

5 

An  apt,  learned  jurist  spake  the  other  day 
Of  Jesus,  as  a  "thaumaturgic  man"  ;         » 

Meaning  a  crank,  fooled  in  the  nature  play, 

Thence  fooling  history  for  the  Christian  plan. — 

My  lady  opened  large  and  serious  eyes, 

Spake,  "  Christ  to  Israel  seemed  as  such  despise  ; 


196  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 

6 

"A  youth  whom  satan  spawned  and  harlot  bred, 
Their  'Toldoth  Jesu'  says  his  arts  assailed 

To  pilfer  from  the  temple's  ark,  and  tread 
The  holy  place  of  holies,  barred  and  vailed. 

He  stole  the  secret  of  the  Master's  word,    * 

That  ruled  the  rehel  genii  when  they  heard, 

7 

"And  by  it  sought  Jehovah  to  dethrone, 
And  chain  perverted  Israel  to  his  knees ; 

But  upright  Judas,  true  and  valiant  known, 
Despoiled  him  of  his  might  of  sorceries. 

His  vassals  stole  the  body  from  the  grave. — 

'Tis  'hail  Iscariot !  born  Jah's  flock  to  save.'" 


XC. 


1 

The  "harp  of  Erin"  is  an  occult  fact, 

In  fourth  dimensioned  rhythm  ;  'tis  a  man, 

Holding  full  purpose  to  a  Wordful  act. 

Emmet,  Wolfe  Tone,  ten  others,  they  began 

'Neath  the  green  banner,  whilst  the  anthem  rolled 

In  solemn,  sweet  harp  thunders,  blithely  bold. 

2 

The  passion  of  a  nationality 

Diffuses  through  the  Irish  Kelt ;  meanwhile 
The  World  Soul  vibrates  to  a  surface  ply, 

Grasping  the  people's  foot-hold  to  their  isle. 
Man-woman  Ireland  toils,  to  shape  in  space 
A  rounding  circle  for  a  nation's  place, 


CONVERSATION   IN   HEAVEN.  197 


3 

Saint  Patrick,  Saint  Bridgida,  two  like  these 
Held  occult  union  in  their  blessed  lives ; 

Toiling,  as  cloistered,  sexless  honey  bees, 
To  store  the  Christ-bread  in  monastic  hives. 

The  fertilizing  pollen  of  the  grace 

Of  God  was  nurture  to  a  famished  race. 

4 

But  such  two  wrought  into  a  dear  regard 
For  each  in  other,  and  their  wedded  hearts, 

When  they  had  grown  the  thirdness  to  discard, 
Knit  them,  in-worded,  wedded  counterparts. 

Patricius  holds  beneath  the  bannered  green, 

Arch-Ireland's  king,  one  with  the  spousal  queen. 

/ 

5 

A  Christed  Erin  by  such  service  grew. 

We  vie^V  an  Emerald  Isle  from  Lilistan, 
Bathed  in  perpetual  verdure  o'er  the  blue 

Sea  waters :  flutters  there  Her  airy  fan  ; 
The  Mother  of  the  morn  a  breath  bestows, 
Blent  in  pure  ethers  to  the  violet-rose. 

6 

Etheric  rivers  tremble  to  the  sea  ; 

All  eloquent  as  speech  they  touch  the  strands ; 
The  surges  lip  to  kiss-waves  joyously ; 

The  warm  sweet  billows  meet  like  lovers'  hands, 
In  holy  troth-plight  to  each  other  lent, 
Affirming  dear  chaste  ardors  of  consent. 


198  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


7 

A  city  rises  in  a  vast  quadrangle, 

Circled  by  spiral  avenues  of  groves 
And  pleasure  seats ;  celestial  stars  bespangle. 

There  Patrick  dwells ;  delightsomely  he  moves, 
Serving  the  realm ;  his  palace,  as  'twas  shown, 
Holds  garden  squares  'neath  one  great  worship-dome. 


XCI. 

1 

I  was  a  guest  one  balmy  afternoon ; 

Patricius  there,  Patricia  at  his  knee. 
Through  waning  day  kissed  down  the  Lady  Moon, 

Postured  for  coming  dew-fall  motherly. 
So  there  these  lovers,  chastely  delicate, 
Drew  to  sweet  converse  from  the  cares  of 'state. 


Four  knees  drew  nigh  in  worship  ;  so,  between, 
God's  concept  book  for  Erin  rose  to  show. 

As  the  white  swans  upon  the  billows  preen, 
Mid  playful  cygnets  goldenly  aglow, 

Patrick  and  queen  Patricia  met  the  sight, 

Plumed  o'er  the  flowings  of  the  realm's  delight. 

3 

But  Patrick  kissed  Patricia,  so  to  open 

The  volume ;  then  to  sight  the  page  grew  clear 
By  water  symbols,  as  when  ice  is  broken 

And  crystal  wavelets  touched  by  stars  appear. 
'Twas  thus  the  flowing  truths  fed  to  the  brain  ; 
The  nostrils  opened,  they  respired  amain. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  199 


4 

The  odor  that  is  named  "  sanctification  " 

Rose  through  Patricia's  breast  with  balmy  sighs ; 

But  Father  Patrick  lifted  adoration, 

Touching  the  sense  where  inspiration  plies: 

Then  to  a  sapience  our  minds  were  knit ; 

We  saw  Earth's  Erin  by  the  skill  of  it ; 

5 

Read  by  an  overstanding  its  ideal ; 

Saw  of  its  kingdom  climbing  to  declare, 
A  realm  all  royal,  priestly,  hymeneal, 

Waiting  the  inbreath  of  God's  nuptial  air ; 
A  Church  in  State,  a  Theosocial  whirl, 
Toned  in  such  order  as  the  stars  unfurl. 

6 

As  the  whorled  bulb  hid  in  the  gardener's  earth, 
Erin  is  nX)w ;  the  bulb  must  thrill  and  waken ; 

The  lily  by  sure-foot  stalk  lift  its  worth, 

Then  ope  to  living  bloom  by  gladness  shaken. 

Freed  from  the  vestiges  of  mortal  shame, 

"Saint  Mary  of  the  Isles"  shall  be  her  name. 

7 

I  touch  the  hand  of  Her  who  mothers  me ; 

I  bless  the  soil  Her  regal  sandals  meet. 
Sweet  hopes  reach  forth  for  Erin's  destiny, 

As  violet  buds  that  part  by  vernal  heat. 
For  Erin's  fate  I  held  a  deep  concern ; 
Patrick's,  Patricia's  hand  so  clasped  in  turn. 


200  CONVERSATION    IN 


The  volume  closed  its  leaves  of  treasured  bliss ; 

Patrick  kissed  on  my  brow,  the  cross  to  sign. — 
When  blessed  Mary,  as  young  Artemis, 

Trips  in  the  Word-truth  o'er  the  breathing  line  ; 
Then  as  the  virgin  mother  beams,  and  lifts 
The  Word  Child  on  her  breast  for  royal  gifts  ; 

9 

The  Isle  that  bears  her  name  shall  bloom,  delivered 
Into  the  freedom  of  Christ's  Holy  See  ; 

Shall  glow,  in  Heavenly  Hymen's  grace  transfigured, 
All  royal,  robed  in  twain-one  liberty. 

Thrill  harp  of  Erin,  thrill  to  Patrick's  hand  ; 

Thrill  to  the  birth-rise  of  Saint  Mary's  land. 


XCIL 

1 

Into  Calamity  I  find  the  way. 

'Tis  in  calamity  that  earth-time  hovers ; 
A  fragile  wreath  of  ceremonial  spray  ; 

A  grimy  avalanche,  mankind  that  covers  ; 
A  rush  of  incoherences  ;  a  strife, 
That  by  its  form  deforms  the  human  life. 

2 

Time-rot  in  mind-rot,  time  is  led  to  grovel 
In  the  gross  element  where  men  decay. 

Scholars  construct  their  theoretic  hovel 
From  the  grand  ruins  of  an  earlier  day. 

Great  history,  a  lost  scripture  disinterred, 

Holds,  unawares  to  men,  Earth's  primal  Word 


CONVERSATION   IN    HEAVEN.  20l 


3 

That  Word  in  history  is  buried  deep  ; 

A  vanished  realm  in  ooze  beneath  the  sea ; 
Palace  and  shrine  in  broken  shards,  that  heap 

O'er  all  that  held  divine  antiquity. 
Not  isled  atlantis,  'neath  the  surges  curled  ; 
There  the  atlantean  orb,  man's  primal  world. 

4 

The  tree  of  ages  sheds  its  withered  leaves, 
And  the  leaves  moulder  restfully  and  mute. 

The  faded  past  from  memory  bereaves, 
But  the  tree  towers  aloft  in  golden  fruit. 

All  the  rich  God-growths  of  the  aions  old 

Shape,  in  calamity  their  forms  to  fold. 

5 

For  in  calamity  time's  Judgment  stands ; 

The  Wondrous  Woman  robed  in  cloud  and  storm. 
Her  fingers  ply  amid  the  sundering  strands, 

And  through  them  show  pale  glimmerings  of  Her  form, 
Feel  through  calamity,  full  free  to  dare  ; 
Touch  to  the  quick ;  'tis  Judgment  meets  thee  there. 

rS 

Time's  "pent  up  Utica  contracts  our  powers." 

Calamity,  that  tracks  the  planet's  round, 
With  feet  in  fire  and  brow  in  cloud  that  lowers, 

Weakens  Earth's  custom  on  its  holding  ground. 
Each  impress  of  those  eager,  flying  feet 
Stamps  out  some  step-stone  of  the  obsolete. 


202  CONVERSATION   IN 


7 

'Tis  the  humanity  in  man  that  waits. 

The  common  ego  in  mankind  resists. 
Calamity  brings  pressure,  operates 

To  serve  the  nobler  manhood  that  persists.    s 
Fold  the  frail  infants  in  the  cradles  warm, 
But  trust  young  courage  to  the  pelting  storm. 

8 

It  threads  the  level  of  t&e  standing  place, 

Whereon  men  by  the.jr  masses  crowd  and  coil: 

Lifts  here  a  barrier,  opens  there  a  space 
Abysmal ;  speeds  the  vantages  to  spoil ; 

Whirls  a  vibration  through  the  ranks  :  they  reel 

And  rend  apart :  so  time  is  in  repeal. 

9 

Time's  moving  form  is  now  deformity. 

America,  that  rose,  an  affirmation 
Of  manhood's  right,  a  proud  enormity 

Becomes  at  last,  a  people's  desolation. 
Calamity,  whose  brow  is  in  the  cloud, 
Weaves  by  her  storm  the  dead  time's  burial  shroud. 

10 

Interest  and  tax  the  harvest  wealth  consume. 

O'er  the  broad  land  the  usurer  is  king. 
Pandora's  box  no  more,  Pandora's  womb 

For  giant  births  of  ill  is  opening. 
Homes,  hearths  and  altars  graced  the  People's  floor ; 
Floor  is  made  quicksand,  fails  and  is  no  more. 


IN    HEAVEN.  203 


11 

Ego-democracy,  time's  vainest  cheat, 

Lifts,  holds  in  place  the  rulership  of  knaves. 

Ring  into  ring  the  bonds  are  forged  complete  ; 
Industrial  cities  crowd  with  clans  of  slaves. 

Freedom,  led  captive  through  her  lost  domains, 

In  their  proud  capitol  bleeds  bound  in  chains. 

12 

Calamities  that  travail  must  converge. 

For  this,  thou  sore-tried  brother,  have  no  fear ; 
'Tis  the  full  flood  that  leads  the  over  surge, 

Reviving  so  the  desert  dry  and  drear. 
Led  through  the  "  needful  trouble  of  the  rains," 
New  life,  heaven's  life,  shall  find  the  thirsty  plains. 


XCIII. 

1 

I  saw  a  martyr  of  the  People,  led 

Into  a  city  of  the  four-fold  wall ; 
Good  Lincoln  ;  there  at  first-time  glance  he  said, 

" Great  heaven!  this  beats  the  promise  of  Saint  Paul." 
Made  welcome  where  the  sacred  throne-light  shone, 
He  then  exclaimed,  "'tis  Christ  in  Washington." 


Upon  a  purple  dais  he  was  placed, 

O'ercome  and  dazzled  by  the  splendor  there. 
The  four-fold  worship  of  the  land  embraced, 

Robed  him  in  priestly  surplice,  and  a  pair 
Of  heavenly  miiiistrants  gave  to  his  hand 
A  crozier,  in  a  scepter  and  its  wand. 


204  CONVERSATION   IN   HEAVEN. 

3 

He  grasped  it  as  a  word-staff;  but  the  mind 

Of  his  humility  such  phrase  bespoke, 
"  Into  an  apple  tree  methought  I  climbed, 

And  in  a  mighty  robin's  nest  awoke 
As  a  babe  bird,  but  lay  as  if  on  pegs, 
Fearing  to  stir  lest  should  be  broken  eggs. 

4 

"But  the  eggs  hatched,  and  out  of  them  came  four, 
That  seemed  to  me  young  feathered  cherubim, 

Whose  wings  clasped  round  me,  fluttered  and  upbore : 
Meanwhile  a  full,  melodious  people's  hymn 

Rose  through  them,  caught  me,  rilled  me,  whirled  me  far 

I  broke  through  Washington  ;  now  here  we  are." 

5 

One  spake,  "  Son,  here  We  are,  and  thou  in  Me. 

Behold  the  city,  it  is  four-fold  wide. 
Open  the  mind  of  thy  humility 

Into  the  mind  of  largeness  I  provide." 
Then  Lincoln  saw,  cried,  in  a  grand  relief, 
"  Christ,  thou  art  God,  the  people's  King  and  Chief." 

6 

'Twas  in  his  land's  calamity  he  wrought  : 

Strove  through  it ;  saw  the  day  of  peace  uprear, 

In  shadows,  to  his  apprehensive  thought ; 
But  then  his  own  calamity  drew  near. 

'Neath  the  assassin's  blow,  his  bosom  gave 

Christ  its  last  love ;  'twas  thus  he  found  the  grave. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  205 


Priestly  in  kingliness,  a  People  stands 
Orbed  in  that  city  of  the  four-fold  wall. 

Lincoln  is  cherished  in  the  common  hands, 
And  feasted  in  their  glorious  banquet  hall. 

Four-fold  the  cherubs  bore  him  wing  in  wing, 

To  serve  that  city  as  a  priest  and  king. 

XCIV.  ; 

1 

'Tis  pressure,  pressure  ;  everywhere  'tis  pressure. 

Now  the  rich  few,  the  life  of  God  who  steal, 
And  waste  the  years  of  men  for  vain  self-pleasure, 

Foot  as  the  dogs  who  serve  to  turn  a  wheel. 
No  man  escapes,  no  woman ;  frost,  that  plies 
Through  autumn's  night,  wastes  the  gay  butterflies. 


The  devotees  of  fashion  are  its  drudges, 
The  men  of  pastime  and  the  men  of  prey ; 

Calamity  the  meager  span  begrudges ; 

Fears  haunt  the  hours  that  serve  for  holiday ; 

Wealth  eats  like  poverty;  hot  blood,  that  drips 

From  heart-pierced  Labor,  stains  the  feasting  lips. 

3 

Ever  the  pressure  grinds,  more  fiercely  cruel; 

Ever  the  competitions  more  intense. 
The  fire  that  climbs,  with  human  lives  for  fuel, 

Sweeps  through  red  flames  to  burials  foul  and  dense. 
Never  so  hard,  since  mortal  time  began, 
For  man  to  thrive  yet  be  an  upright  man. 


206  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN, 


4 

In  the  strained  situation  men  are  harried, 

Like  hares  that  race  before  the  huntsman's  pack. 

Souls  are  opprest  as  Sindbad  was  who  carried 
The  "old  man  of  the  sea"  upon  his  back. 

The  long,  lean,  sinewy  arms  the  neck  entwine ; 

Men  press,  ripe  grapes,  the  beast  fills  with  the  wine. 

5 

Time  hardens,  and  men's  hearts  by  pressure  harden, 
Grow  dense,  grow  callous  to  the  common  woe. 

Once  nature  held  a  paradisal  garden  ; 
Now  it  holds  hell  on  earth  by  overflow. 

Street  boys  and  girls,  defiant,  furtive,  bold, 

Show  wizened  faces,  prematurely  old. 

6 

Reverence  for  age  is  perishing  from  youth  ; 

Mankind  is  verging  to  the  fever  stage ; 
Spectral  illusions  image  for  the  truth  ; 

The  charlatan  rules,  trampling  on  the  mage. 
The  eyeballs  of  mankind  are  seared  ;  they  spin 
To  a  walpurgis  dance  their  dreams  within. 

7 

The  universe  a  form  of  truth  in  reason ; 

The  man  a  microcosm  of  its  forms ; 
Shall  this  be  so,  and  yet  the  Age  of  Treason 

Reel  on,  nor  fail,  nor  perish  in  the  storms  ? 
We  stand  in  prison,  in  an  iron  room, 
Whose  walls  contract  to  shape  our  living  tomb. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  207 

8 

Yet  Judgment,  moving  on,  i$  counter-pressure ; 

She  heaves  full  breasts  to  front  the  iron  wall ; 
She  nerves  the  Woman's  Avill,  its  might  to  measure 

'Gainst  the  foul  force  that  else  o'ermasters  all. 
The  fourtlmess  breathes  in  battle  with  the  third ; 
The  Woman! v  of  God  has  felt,  has  heard. 


Break  heart,  thou  heart ;  but  open  to  the  Sea. 

Sea  of  God's  Womanly,  thy  floods  awaken. 
Through  the  last  pressure  may  the  Advent  be ; 

In  the  dread  hour  of  bars  let  bars  be  braken. 
We  find  the  time-pulse  faint,  uncertain,  slow, 
And  touch  the  moment  of  the  Coming  so. 


xcv. 


"Work  while  the  day  lasts,  for  night  cometh  soon, 
Wherein  no  man  can  labor" ;  'tis  a  text 

Phrased  in  the  wisdom  of  the  opportune. 
All  that  man  doeth  istjto  him  annexed : 

So  it  be  wrought  in  rectitude,  a  ground 

Is  fashioned  thus  in  the  eternal  round. 

2 

So  Lincoln  labored ;  an  unselfness  held, 
With  God  in  purpose  for  a  nation's  life. 

Never  against  his  calling  he  rebelled  : 

His  time  was  buried  in  the  worthful  strife, 

A  people  to  revive  and  reinstate, 

From  the  huge  wreck  where  it  lay  desolate. 


208  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


3 

He  held  that  God  should  be  incorporate 

In  public  order,  as  in  private  worth  ; 
His  effort  was  mankind  to  elevate, 

That  saints  in  fact  should  hence  possess  the  earth. 
Not  much  of  saintliness  he  kept  for  show  ; 
His  to  lift  burdens  of  the  common  woe. 

4 

"Infidel,  Tyrant,  Murderer,  Buffoon," 

Such  the  foul  epithets  hurled  on  his  name. 

He  entered  where  the  nation  lay  in  swoon, 

Spell-bound,  half-paralyzed  by  dread  and  shame. 

The  pathway  broke  to  chasms  where  he  trod  ; 

Firm-footed  he,  his  foot-faith  held  to  God. 

•5' 

The  tender  hearted  man,  the  just  and  fearless, 
The  soul  of  love,  the  bosom  free  from  guile  : 

For  him  the  anxious  nights  were  dry  and  cheerless ; 
Days  led  through  toil  on  toil  as  thunders  pile ; 

The  patient  man,  unflinching  in  his  trust, 

Held  to  God's  ends  by  the  divine  "thou  must." 

6 

From  his  shrewd  eyes  I  caught  a  merry  twinkle  ; 

Sonxe  happy  jest  Was  nigh  his  lips  to  tell ; 
His  mouth  was  pursed,  with  laughter  to  besprinkle. 

Sitting  at  ease, — I  knew  the  habit  well, — 
Quoth  he,  "  decision,  when  it  carries  fate, 
Makes  it  seem  easy  to  the  men  who  wait. 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  209 


"Relax  the  mind  first  when  you  seek  to  brace  it ; 

Laughter  holds  courage,  breeds  a  genial  fire. 
First  realize  the  difficult,  then  face  it, 

To  fill  with  cheer  the  hosts  you  would  inspire. 
Colors  at  half-mast  prophesy  defeat; 
Hold  joyous  valor  to  the  topmost  beat. 


" Enough,"  spake  he,  "my  coat  is  photographed, 
Yet  here  again  the  old  coat  is  turned  new. 

The  man  who  wept  sat  in  the  man  who  laughed ; 
Seward  nor  Stanton  saw  the  mantle  through, 

But  Christ  saw  through ;  when  labor  seemed  but  loss, 

My  thought  held  to  the  Man  upon  the  cross." 

9 

The  sea-like  swells  of  recollection  ceased  ; 

A  genial  reverence  suffused  his  face  ; 
Thoughts  to  his  present  blessing-time  released  ; 

Bearing  grew  stately,  as  became  the  place. 
Into  a  priestly  kingliness,  he  bore 
The  shrewd  simplicity  his  earth  time  wore. 

XCVI. 


1 

"Work  while  the  day  lasts"  ;  look  before  from  after. 

Here,  where  the  larum  bell  from  Sumpter  tolled ; 
Where  North  and  South  clinched  on  the  blazing  rafter, 

As  giants  fight,  whilst  chaos  'neath  them  rolled  ; 
I  think  unto  the  work  of  hearts  in  hands, 
Where  manifested  God  in  Labor  stands. 
14 


210  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


2 

Judgment  does  not  coerce,  She  liberates ; 

Does  not  suppress  but  sets  the  motives  free ; 
Uplifts  in  God  the  soul  that  supplicates ; 

Enthrones  the  just  in  opportunity. 
The  New  Jerusalem,  from  town  to  town, 
Through  blissful  human  labor  settles  down. 

3 

A  spark  of  love  loosens  the  cruel  rigor, 

Wafts  waves  of  sunshine  through  the  quickening  heart ; 
Then  how  much  more  shall  Love  Divine  transfigure, 

Led  on  through  counterpart  to  counterpart, 
Borne  on  by  thrills,  the  flesh  that  unprofane, 
As  human  earth  opes  to  the  One-in-Twain, 


4 

"Labor  is  prayer";  the  old  monastic  saying. 

Labor  sans  worship  led  through  heart  to  hands, 
Is  but  mock  service,  kin  to  a  betraying. 

Labor  is  gladsomeness,  that  seas  and  lands 
Rejoice  for,  when  divine  results  are  shown, 
As  rife  fruitions,  from  their  motives  grown. 

5 

Say,  "can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin"? 

Yea,  when  the  Word-life  leads  transcoloration. 
The  outer  form  as  that  which  is  within 

Reveals,  when  Word-sex  grows  to  revelation. 
So  the  starred  night  illumes  to  roseate  morn, 
And  golden  sunrise,  through  auroras  born. 


CONVERSATION  IN  &EAVEN. 

6 

I  sat  with  Lincoln  in  his  private  room ; 

Mild  respirations  rose  our  breasts  between. 
Sudden  he  spake,  "  behold  a  rose  in  bloom ! " 

A  lady  entered,  priestess,  muse  and  queen ; 
A  dark,  rich  beauty,  colored  as  ripe  fruit ; 
Warm  as  by  summer  odor  in  pursuit. 

7 

"I  saw  the  Lord/'  spake  she,  "our  very  Lord, 
Once,  father  Abram,  as  the  Colored  Man." 

Her  glorious  bosom  heaved,  a  grecian  chord 

Thrilled  through  her  voice,  but  that  was  african. 

"  Here  I  have  seen  His  Lady  ;  yes  indeed, 

The  Lady  of  the  Lord:  we  are  their  seed." 

8 

Sojourner  Truth,  called  since  ''Deliverance"  ; 

One  who  bore  witness  to  the  times  at  hand; 
One  who  held  firm  in  Freedom's  long  advance 

To  blot  the  stains  of  bondage  from  the  land, — 
Then  she  was  dark  as  tropic  night,  but  now 
The  Mother's  radiance  robes  her  to  the  brow. 

9 

Here's  an  hereafter  that  is  rich  in  gift ; 

Its  bosom  heaves  above  our  planet's  line. 
See  how  the  transformations  may  uplift ; 

Transcolorations  tint  to  hues  divine. 
Twain  continents,  as  day  and  night,  embrace 
In  God,  and  race  transfuses  into  race. 


212  CONVERSATION    IK    HEAVEK, 


XCVII. 


1 

'Tis  the  transfusion  of  the  life  of  Christ, 
Essential  substance  of  the  Nazarene, 

That  lifts  man-woman,  so  imparadised, 

To  image  forth  the  Bridal  King  and  Queen. 

There's  a  young  heaven  that  presses  to  the  van 

Of  coming  time,  afro-american. 

2 

Survival  of  Word-purpose  led  through  act ; 

Survival  of  organic  good  in  true ; 
Survival  of  the  life-toil,  held  compact 

In  the  divine  affections  that  pursue ; 
Survivals  of  beatitudes,  reborn 
From  God  through  men  toiling  in  times  forlorn  ; 

3 

Survival  of  the  Worded  man,  in  that 

Which  from  the  Worfl-life  grew  in  deeds  to  be  ; 
'Tis  such  that  lifts  an  heavenly  ararat, 

Mountain  of  God,  in  timed  eternity. 
It  rises  o'er  the  floods  that  clasp  its  base ; 
An  infant  eden  folds  in  its  embrace. 

4 

"  Jacob  kissed  .Rachel,  lifted  voice  and  wept," 
His  bosom  cradled  to  a  sweet  repose  ; 

Abram  kissed  Sojourner,  whom  God  had  clept, 
And  Goddess  blossomed  through  as  Eden's  rose. 

By  interpresence,  God  their  beings  drew 

To  interfusion,  making  all  things  new. 


CONVERSATION   IN    HEAVEN.  213 


5 

Such  is  conjugial  union  in  the  skies  : 

No  marriage  there  as  is  by  worldlings  known  ; 

But  wedded  harmonies  in  melodies; 

Groom  led  through  Christ's  and  Bride  through  Christa's 
throne. 

"Married?"  nay,  not  as  mortal  ego  dreams  ; 

But  Christa-Christed,  led  to  living  streams. 

6 

Of  men  and  women  mightiest  to  serve, 

Through  the  fierce  crisis-years  that  freed  the  slave  ; 
What  powers  in  confluence  their  Word-lives  nerve ! 

What  firm  results  their  sacred  stand-place  pave  ! 
Freedom  grew  through  them  by  the  earth's  pursuit ; 
But  a  new  heaven  in  heaven  is  ripened  fruit. 

7 

The  fragrance  of  twain  grand,  good  lives ;  that  led 
Through  balmy  gifts  of  toil,  floats  there  suspended  ; 

Till  a  young  atmosphere  is  in  it  bred, 

Holding  rich  Word-breath  with  its  ethers  blended. 

So  each  new  heaven  breathes,  in  its  local  tide 

Of  atmosphere,  fed  by  the  Bridegroom-Bride, 

8 

'Tis  Word-attraction  weaves  association. 

Beings,  by  sympathies  most  near  akin, 
Draw  to  a  special  thought  and  conversation ; 

Styles,  tastes,  modes,  habits,  colors  to  the  skin. 
We  are  with  those  we  love  the  most  to  meet, 
In  sympathies  that  rhythm,  brow  to  feet. 


214  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN. 


9 

Hence  those  "who  many  turn  to  righteousness" 
Shine  there  "  as  stars  forever  and  forever/' 

Concentered  in  a  mightiness  to  bless, 

That  "follows  them,"  the  fruit  of  life's  endeavor. 

Motives,  in  bosomed  God  that  held  their  tryst, 

As  mights  in  timed  eternity  persist. 


XCVITL 

• 

1 

A  Nation  comes  that  is  not  yet  a  nation, 
As  Christ- Apollo  born  to  sway  the  sphere ; 

In  evolution  'tis  divine  creation. 

Lo  now!  its  cradle  is  the  old  time's  bier. 

All  realms  by  time  must  age  and  fade 'from  view; 

This  shall  through  time's  advance  rise  ever  new  ; 

2 

A  Nation,  born  in  old  time's  drear  december, 
Yet  from  the  bosom  of  the  Virgin  May  ; 

Stricken  as  fire  from  stone  that  held  no  ember  ; 
Knit  as  the  stars  are  in  melodious  play : 

Borne  so  to  fly  abroad  on  four-fold  wings, 

Heroes  and  poets,  hierophants  and  kings. 

3 

Judgment  involves  by  interpenetration  ; 

Keen,  sharp,  decisive  is  Her  final  thrust ; 
Pierces  the  inly  quick  for  liberation  ; 

Pierces  the  inly  dead  for  "  dust  to  dust"; 
'Tis  so  the  wheat  is  gathered  from  the  chaff. 
The  planet,  as  a  mother,  thrills  to  laugh, 


CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN.  215 


4 

That  now  the  fated  labor-pains  are  ended, 

And  the  man-woman  babe  has  crowned  her  bed  ; 

He  who  ascended  now  Twain-One  descended, 
On,  on,  to  endless  consummations  wed  ; 

Once  to  the  people,  in  the  earlier  morn, 

Now  in  a  People,  for  deliverance  born. 

XCIX. 


Bring  me  a  cup  of  joy  distilled  from  fears  ; 

Infuse  the  nectars  of  the  holy  grail. 
Tears  that  have  furrowed  through  me, — sorrow's  tears, — 

Condensed  upon  my  flesh  to  biting  hail. 
Clad  so  in  piercing  winter,  yet  it  failed 
To  bind  the  Word  Song ;  that  has  now  prevailed. 

2 

Hearing,  One  brought  a  pitcher  and  a  loaf, 

Pitcher  of  water,  loaf  of  oaten  bread, 
Saying,  "0  son!  drink  thou  and  eat  thereof; 

Then  I  will  fold  a  mantle  o'er  thine  head, 
And  thou  shalt  feel  it  as  a  cloud,  whose  veins 
Open,  to  flow  with  blessings  of  the  rains." 

3 

After  this  came  to  me  a  little  sister, 

Whom  I  had  known  and  loved  ere  mortal  birth  ; 
Christ-Christa  by  their  lips  to  being  kissed  her  ; 

We  were  twain  Word-seed  in  aromal  earth, 
And  we  in  choral  melodies  were  spun 
Through  psychic  lives,  ever  made  more  at-one, 


216  CONVERSATION    IN    HEAVEN, 

4 

This  is  that  Lily  of  the  Morning  Land, 
In  whom  my  four-fold  service  ever  plies  ; 

As  Lady  Sue  known  in  her  household  band  ; 
As  Issa  in  the  sacred  mysteries ; 

Sister,  muse,  priestess,  four-fold  in  the  wife, 

Yet  named  as  "  daughter"  in  the  book  of  life. 

5 

•"Joy-rains,  joy-rains,"  spake  she  "in  Lilistan  ! 

The  land  is  overbrimmed  with  sparkling  ether ; 
Four  seasons  fold  in  one,  four  skies  in-span. 

As  to  each  wedded  maid,  four  wings  enwreathe  her, 
Wings  of  the  Overshadowing  ;  they  wed 
From  this,  to  form  a  mantle  o'er  thy  head." 


C. 


1 

Through  interpenetration,  we  discern 

The  end  of  egoized  Society  ; 
The  dissolution  of  the  civic  urn, 

Leaving  mankind  as  flowing  waters  free. 
Not  now  as  when  the  old-time  deluge  curled ; 
Then  'twas  a  sinking,  now  a  rising  world. 


Wisdom  has  writ,  in  pages  yet  to  show, 
Her  record  of  the  dying  out  of  hells  ; 

The  rise  of  Word-life  penetrant  below  ; 

The  bursting  of  the  huge  subversive  shells  ; 

The  fourth  dimensioned  order  opened  there  ; 

The  birth  and  bloom  of  hope-time  through  despair. 


CONVERSATION   IN   HEAVEN. 


3 

Behold  in  Wisdom's  cabinet  again. 

The  door  thereto  is  for  us  four-fold  wide. 
Here  glimpse  to  Adonai,  robed  as  when 

He  saw  the  old  air-deluge  overtide. 
Four  holy  ancients  here  sit  knee  to  knee. 
The  Word-book  opens,  blessed  hence  are  we. 

4 

Book  of  the  fathers,  to  their  seed  delivered ! 

Ah,  childlike  sit  the  ancients,  four-fold  rays 
Below,  above,  inly  and  outly  rivered, 

Flow  from  the  Ancient- Ancientess  of  days. 
" Unfold,  this  leaf,"  spake  one,  mild,  reverent,  slow, 
"Yet  stand  to  read,  girt  by  the  vorticed  bow." 

5 

Opens  a  page,  in  vorticed  columns  written. 

Truths  in  the  pillars  rise  to  human  height ; 
Truths  from  times  past  to  times  yet  future  litten, 

Arrayed  in  images  of  Word  made  sight. 
They  may  behold,  inspire,  achord,  command, 
Who  inner,  outer,  over,  under-stand. 

6 

In  timed  Eternity  our  thoughts  awaken ; 

Within  our  minds  four  mighty  pulses  meet. 
Deliverance  shapes  unto  us ;  we  are  taken 

To  see  where  Judgment  holds  Her  mercy  seat. 
Her  hand  has  vorticed  and  it  touches  far ; 
Yea,  from  the  evening  to  the  morning  star. 


218  CONVERSATION   IN   HEAVEN. 


7 

Into  Her  bosom  She  has  drawn  the  planet ; 

A  babe  upon  Her  knee,  'tis  folded  sweet ; 
For  its  new  atmosphere  Her  breathings  fan  it ; 

Earth  is  baptized  into  the  Paraclete  ; 
Star  that  was  lost,  reborn  into  the  host 
Of  heaven,  o'ershadowed  by  the.  Holy  Ghost. 


8 
Into  the  gladness  of  a  company 

Of  blessed  ones  I  was  thereafter  led  ; 
The  ladies  they  who  were  of  Bethany  ; 

And  Lazarus,  whom  Christ  raised  from  the  dead ; 
And  with  them  others,  Mary,  Phoebe,  Paul: 
They  made  rich  cheer  as  in  a  bridal  hall. 

9 

The  toils  of  nineteen  centuries  are  ending 
For  these,  who  led  tfre  ancient  witnessing. 

I  felt  their  joy,  ascending  and  descending, 
Inheavened  in  the  Savior  Queen  and  King. 

To  blessed  close  by  this  the  Word  Song  drew. 

Conversing  yet  in  heaven,  I  bid  "  adieu." 


THE    END. 


June  26— October  1,  1893. 


& 


